The Magical Adventures of the Skirmish Brothers
by Blood Dark Sun
Summary: In an effort to convince the Skirmish Brothers that magic exists, England talks them into visiting magical worlds that they have always considered fictional. Rated T for language. A sequel to "Skirmish Brothers" and the other stories in that universe (see my profile for details).
1. Prologue

**Prologue.**

"They do exist, you know." England pushed back his cap and grinned, though his eyes were shut against the sun. "Middle-Earth's a lot cooler at this time of year, too." He raised his Campari and soda to toast his friends.

It was true: the heat here in Rome was almost sizzling. A week of meetings in Venice had just ended, and Romano had invited his three friends to spend the weekend. None had anticipated the sweltering weather, though. They now relaxed on his back deck, drinking iced drinks, wearing nothing but swim trunks and caps to shield their eyes. Every now and then, Romano turned on the garden hose and sprayed them all, before returning to his siestalike stupor.

"Kesesese! You can't be serious, Arthur. Middle-Earth?"

"Hah!" Denmark snorted weakly, placing some ice cubes in a line down each of his powerful thighs. "Next you'll be telling me Discworld exists, or Narnia."

"Bastards."

"They do," the island nation yawned, pouring another drink from the depleted pitcher. "How do you think I know about them? My people go there, and then come back to write stories about them. Oz, Barsoom, Dalemark…they're all real."

Prussia opened his eyes but then closed them against the intense sunlight. "So, have you ever been there?" More than a hint of derision came through in his question.

"Of course." Ice cubes tinkled as England finished his drink. "Anybody can get there, if they have the right mindset."

"See, bastard, he's going to claim nobody has the right fucking mindset anymore, and then he won't have to prove it." Romano played the hose over them once more.

"Not at all. I could take us all to anyplace you'd care to go. Though I'd suspect Romano would be too bloody chicken."

"Pfft. You could take us to Middle-Earth?" Den started laughing so hard that all the remaining ice cubes fell off his legs. "You're on."

"Yes! Let's go. I want to meet Saruman! That'd be so awesome, because he's Saruman the White, you know."

England finally opened his eyes and stared at the albino. "Gilbert, you idiot. Saruman's dead, remember? Wormtongue killed him."

Prussia's face fell; Romano started laughing. "See? I told you. He'll take you to some fucking desolate part of Britain and claim it's Middle-Earth. Pfft. Well, you're not getting me to fall for it, stupid." He reached for the hose and aimed it right at the island nation's face.

"Git!"

A short struggle ensued; when it was over, both England and Romano were soaking wet and laughing. Prussia had rescued (and emptied) the drinks pitcher, and Denmark had fallen asleep, missing the whole thing.

"All right," Romano finally conceded, trying to dry his sopping hair with his wet shirt. "Fine. Take us all to Middle-Earth. Prove it. Then I'll shut up about your fucking mystic shit once and for all."

"Deal," England promptly responded. "Next weekend's a bank holiday. Come over on Friday night; we'll get a good night's sleep, and leave on Saturday morning."

"Kesesese! Hey, Den, wake up! This is going to be _awesome!"_

…

_I wanted to do another Skirmish Brothers story, but not an AU. This idea came to me on the beach today! Tough to find computer time around here._

_This framework will allow me to write a series of mini-crossovers with famous literary magic worlds. Stay tuned for all the named ones and probably some others, too. If you have any specific world you'd like to see them visit, drop me a line._

_They will only encounter characters who are still alive in the crossover worlds. Anyone who has died or left the main scene (i.e., Frodo and Bilbo going to the Grey Havens) will not appear._

_I'm guessing that somehow other nations will get pulled into these shenanigans from time to time, if only accidentally._


	2. The Shire

**The Shire. **(Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien)

Denmark woke up kind of late on Saturday. It was past nine! He stretched in the bed, wondering why Prussia hadn't dragged him awake at six, wondering why England and Romano had let him sleep so long. Maybe they were still in bed. He knew both of them were late sleepers. Stumbling out of the bed, Den hurried to wash up, then dressed in a tan tee, brown pants and his hiking boots.

At first he'd dismissed England's claims as unprovable, but over the last week he and Prussia had spoken of it more and more, and now he was strongly hoping that this was legit. To see Middle-Earth! Not many people had that chance, he'd bet. Not to mention the sheer nervous thrill of being involved in magic. Den wasn't as flagrantly excited as Prussia was, but he was keeping a lid on it so he didn't look like a dork. He planned to be very calm and supportive of the island nation (no matter what negativity Romano might still be spouting) in case it was true. Think of all the places they could go, if England didn't get pissed off at them!

As he descended the narrow stairs of the London townhome, he could hear three accented, angry voices shouting in the kitchen. The fighting bastards were at it already! Grinning, he walked into the room, and immediately saw the problem. "Prussia, you ass. Go change your clothes."

"What? What?" The albino removed his mirrored sunglasses and peered down at his outfit: tie-dye neon hoodie, cargo jean shorts, a chain wallet and Birkenstocks with black socks. "Arthur's yelling about it, too. What are you two talking about? This is my usual tourist outfit. Remember?"

Den yawned. "They don't dress like that in Middle-Earth. You have to blend in with the locals! Go put on something more somber."

"Somber! I don't do somber." Prussia flopped into a kitchen chair and put his sunglasses back on with a grin, sucking down some coffee.

"Pfft. Might as well let him dress how he wants, bastards. You know we're not actually going to end up there."

England slammed his fist down onto the counter. "Listen up, wankers. Either we do this right, or we don't go. I don't want to cause problems with hobbits staring at Gilbert's bloody neon gear all day, or listen to Romano's half-assed bitching about how I'm taking you to a fake place!"

"I know you'll take us to a real place, you moron. I know you can work magic, remember?" Romano reached a hand up to his throat. "I just don't believe you can take us to a place that's fictional."

"Git! It's not fictional! That's the whole point!"

"Dammit, you stupid bastard! You know what I meant."

England roared, "If you're going to be like this, then get out of the bloody house!"

The two of them faced each other across the counter, growling. _Back down, Romano_, Denmark prayed. It was never pretty when these two fought with each other, and it would suck if he didn't play along. Not to mention all the damn drama afterwards…Den could see it now, three months of fighting and listening to Romano moan about England. Shit.

Romano took a deep breath and apparently heard the prayer. "Sorry," he said, staring at the floor.

"Yeah, me too." England pushed a hand through his hair. "Look, even if you don't believe it, just roll with it, all right? It's an adventure for all four of us. If it turns out to be unsatisfactory for you, I give you my permission to give me unlimited flak about it for the next two weeks. All right?"

"O-okay." The brunet looked up and they hesitantly smiled at each other. "Three weeks," he amended with a smirk.

England rolled his eyes. "Fine."

"Enough of all this," Den then said, hoping to dispel the tension. "Prussia, go change, and England, make me some breakfast." Though he might live to regret that.

"Wanker. Get your own breakfast. I'll help Gilbert find something appropriate to wear." The two of them left the room.

"Fuck," Romano sighed, flopping into a chair, watching Den rummage around for food. He at least was dressed more appropriately – black clothes and boots – even if he didn't think it was a 'real event.'

Denmark found some rye bread and put it in the toaster, grabbing an apple from the bowl on the counter to munch while he waited for it to pop up. "Yeah. But listen, will you? What if it really is real? Wouldn't you be pissed if we missed out on it?"

"Guess so. I'm not really a fan of magical shit. I've seen the movies, but…" Romano shrugged.

The toast popped up and Denmark began to butter it. "But you know England would go along with stuff that _you_ like, right? If you wanted him to? Might as well return the favor. Besides, maybe Prussia will be so awed he'll shut up for a while."

The two of them were still laughing at that when the others returned, with the albino now appropriately dressed. He still wore his shorts, and his sandals without the socks, but had struggled his more muscular torso into one of England's plain olive green t-shirts; the sunglasses were gone.

"Did you get enough to eat?" England asked.

"Psh. Yeah, enough, I guess." Den shoved the last piece of stale toast into his mouth and licked butter off his fingers.

"So where are you taking us? The Shire? Rohan? Lothlorien? Man, I want to see some elves," Prussia whined. Romano rolled his eyes but kept silent.

The island nation busied himself putting away the breakfast things, tumbling the dirty crockery into the sink for later. "I thought we'd start out in the Shire. It's fairly tame. If you're all happy with the adventure as a whole, we can put the other places on a list for the future. Okay?"

"Deal!" Prussia grabbed Den's hand and began jumping up and down. "Where do we go? What do we do?"

Romano started laughing. To Denmark he said, "About that 'so awed' business?"

Both England and Prussia ignored that. "Yappy gits. Come downstairs to my Sanctum."

"His what?" Den whispered to Romano, following England and the capering Prussia down the gloomy wooden stairs to the basement.

"Beats the hell out of me."

The blond led them into a spacious, wooden-floored room with massive floor-to-ceiling bookcases on all four walls. Track lighting overhead dispelled any gloom; shelves with incense, candles, books, and other magical paraphernalia surrounded them. The center of the room was filled by an ornate magical circle carved into the floor, with a smaller one off to the side.

Prussia immediately ran up to a skull on a shelf. "Cool! Whose skull?"

"Sherlock Holmes," England muttered absently, scrounging around in a drawer.

"Don't you mean the awesome Conan Doyle?"

"I mean Sherlock Holmes!" The blond unearthed a long, rustic-looking cape with a hood, a sort of dirty brick color, and put it on over his clothing, fastening it at the throat. "Don't touch anything." He then took a battered leather rucksack and checked its contents.

"Sherlock fucking _Holmes._ I'm going to get a headache from all this eye rolling, bastard."

"Can we meet him someday? Can we?"

At this, England stopped what he was doing and glared at Prussia. "You're incredibly stupid about all this, Gilbert. He's _dead._ That's his _skull._ How do you suppose we could meet him?"

"Oh. Right." Prussia eyed the skull a bit nervously and wandered off to look at a shelf full of candles. "Can't you time-travel?"

"Pfft. If I could, I'd go back to last weekend and not have that conversation about magical worlds! Now shut it. Stand in the middle of the big circle." England pointed to it and held the rucksack up for all to see. "This is our emergency bag. Aspirin, ointment, allergy pills, that kind of shite. I'll hang onto it. Let me know if you need anything."

Dutifully his three friends moved to the center of the circle. Prussia continued to peer around the room and tug on Den's arm whenever he saw something interesting. "What do we need to do?"

Their host turned from his packing. "You're in the circle, yeah? We'll stand in there, and I need to light a candle and recite a spell. All you three have to do is stand silently and don't break the circle. Got that? Gilbert? Don't break the circle!"

"Yeah, yeah, I awesomely got it." Both the others nodded; Romano continued to scowl around the room.

"I never even knew you had a basement," Den remarked, gazing at everything. "It looks very modern, for a magic place. You know. We expect dribbly candles and eye of toad and all that junk you read about in books, but this looks like a drugstore."

"A drugstore with Sherlock Holmes' fucking skull," Romano muttered, sounding uneasy.

"There's no reason to stick with all that old-time claptrap," England pointed out. "Magic moves with the times just like everything else. Most of the old stuff you see is just personal memorabilia for me." He headed to a bookcase and removed a large, leather-bound book, looking something up and nodding to himself.

"Hey, Iggy, do you really use all this stuff or is it just for show?" Prussia pointed at a broom in the corner.

"Not going to answer if you call me Iggy." The host pulled out a thick white candle and some matches, and strode to the center of the circle. "Hold this." He handed it to Denmark, probably because he seemed like the most rational one of the three at the moment, before striding to a large wardrobe in the corner.

"Okay, then, _Arrrr-thurrr…_will you answer me? What's the broom for? I thought only witches used brooms?"

"Git. The broom is used for sweeping the floor." Even Romano laughed at that. "I use most of this stuff, though it depends on what I'm doing. Every spell has different needs." He rummaged in the wardrobe, pulling out an impressive ebony wizard's staff shod with silver.

"How often do you do magic?"

"Not much, these days. I'm glad I'm getting a chance to do some now. I hope you wankers can deal with it." He joined them in the circle, switching off the overhead lights on the way. The room became somewhat spooky. Was the skull glowing? Denmark shivered a little. "Den, please light the candle and place it in the dead center of the circle, which is marked with a cross."

The others spread back to give Denmark some room. Romano clutched at England's cape and the four stood staring at the candle for a second. "Well?" the Italian hissed.

"Turn your back on it. One person facing each of the cardinal directions."

"How do we know –?"

"Kesesese! It's carved into the floor, Romano!" Prussia pointed to the compass rose, flickering in the weak, gardenia-scented candlelight. "Wait, though. We have to do our regular compass thing." He pulled and shoved until the struggling Romano stood facing south, Denmark north, England west and then took his own position facing east. "Okay, go."

England began a low melancholy chant that none of the others could make out, and before Denmark could begin to worry…

…they were standing at a dusty crossroads, looking out over some fields. "Huh?" Romano blurted out. "That was it?"

"Wow. Even if this isn't the Shire, Arthur, that was an excellent way of traveling." Prussia blew him a kiss. "Can we move now?"

"Yes, step away from the candle." England reached down, picked it up, and ceremoniously extinguished it, stowing it in the rucksack.

Denmark had to shade his eyes against the bright sunlight. "This is really the Shire?"

"Yes!" England raised his dark eyebrows and buffed his nails on his robe, grinning like the master magician he was. "Why would I lie?" He took a deep breath and stretched.

Romano laughed. "Prove it. I'm not being cranky! I just want some proof. But the albino potato is right. That was a great way to travel. Why don't you do that for meetings? Save yourself all that time on trains and fucking airplanes? Save _us_ all that time…?" He smiled somewhat appealingly at his boyfriend.

"Half of the knowledge of magic is knowing when not to use it," England lectured. "Are we going to stand around gawking all day?" He turned slowly in place. "But it does seem rather deserted. Maybe something's going on. Some kind of event. I hope there's no trouble."

"If there is, we could probably help out." Den grinned. "Should have brought my axe. That'd fit right in. Or I could use your staff?"

"Bloody hell! We're not supposed to interfere! And my staff is not a weapon."

"Let's walk! Let's walk!" Prussia grabbed Den's hand and pulled him along in a random direction.

"Hey, no," the Dane replied, yanking his hand away. "I don't want to hold your hand while we're here."

"Huh? Oh. Well, all right." The albino skipped ahead and did a few handsprings; one of his sandals fell off and he hurried to fetch it. "This is _so awesome!_"

"Don't get your hopes up, bastard. This looks exactly like the movies, you know? I bet he just brought us to New Zealand, where they make the movies. This is the movie set. It's still set up for the Hobbit movies."

England rolled his eyes again. "Don't be an arse, Romano. Of course Peter Jackson's been to Middle-Earth, too. He modeled the sets on the actual Shire."

Romano kicked a rock. "It's a fucking British conspiracy."

"Shut up," all three of his friends chorused, walking on. He hurried to catch up.

"Anyway, even if this was the movie set, that'd still be awesome. I want to meet Benedict Cumberbatch!"

"You're no better than a bloody fangirl, Gilbert! Everybody in Christendom wants to meet that bloke. Get a move on!"

…

About a mile later a young boy ran up to them. Everyone but England stared in amazement, because this boy really did look like a hobbit. Denmark, squinting, couldn't tell whether he was an – an _actual hobbit,_ or a curly-haired actor with prosthetic hairy feet. Young? He might even be as old as thirty. Den realized he was completely at a loss here.

Before anyone could speak, the boy said to Prussia, "Are you here for the party? You – gosh, you're completely _white!"_

Prussia flashed him a wide-eyed grin and then did another handspring. "Party? Awesome!"

"Shut up." Romano hissed this but they all heard it.

England sighed. "No, lad, we're not. What's the party in aid of? And is that why there's no one around? We don't want to interrupt anything."

"Yeah, yeah! My da's having a birthday today. He said some old friends were coming, so I'm out here on the road to meet them."

Denmark stared at the youngster, still trying to make up his mind about the boy's authenticity. "Da?" he asked, at the same time that England said "Old friends?"

"Me dad's name is Samwise. It's not actually his birthday. He went on a big adventure when he was little and today's the anniversary of the day he came back safely. He went with his friend Mr. Frodo."

"We know," Romano said, perhaps unwisely.

"You do know? It's true, what Dad always said! Mr. Frodo was the famousest of all the hobbits!" The youngster tried to mimic Prussia's handspring and fell down, laughing and waving his big hairy feet in the air. "Come on! Come to the party!"

"Wait, lad, wait." England helped him upright. "We aren't the friends he's waiting for."

"That's all right! Everyone's welcome at a party. Come along and I'll show you where it is."

Prussia did a little triumphant shuffle-step in the middle of the road, but Den cleared his throat. "Wh-what about the real friends?" he wondered. "What happens if you're not here when they show up?"

"Sam's friends will show up," a deep voice boomed behind them. As they turned, Den saw Romano close his eyes, as if he couldn't believe what was happening.

And in fact Denmark could hardly believe it, and Prussia stood with his jaw open like a big dumb fish. "G-Gimli? _Legolas?"_ the albino whispered.

"You know us, white man?" the newcomer laughed. Even Legolas managed a gentle smile. "Aye, every one of Sam Gamgee's friends knows us!" The dwarf tried to throw his arm around Prussia's shoulders, but the albino was too tall, so Gimli merely slapped him on the back. "Come along! As the youngster said, everyone's welcome at a party."

Somewhat in a daze, the Skirmish Brothers managed to perform introductions as they walked along. England remained polite and friendly, chatting with both the dwarf and elf, while the hobbit scampered ahead, still trying to mimic Prussia's handsprings.

Eventually a little something snapped in Denmark's brain, and he stopped thinking of them as _famous fictional characters_ and just started thinking of them as people. At that point, it became much easier to converse, although the calm serenity of Legolas got on his nerves a bit.

Prussia had apparently found a similar solution in his mind; he was now up ahead, laughing and trying to teach the young hobbit (whose name they still did not know) how to properly perform a handspring. Maybe it was easier for him to relax because the young boy wasn't a book character?

Denmark was so laughingly intent on that sight, and on his conversation with the others, that he didn't pay attention to Romano, so he missed the warning signs. The brunet walked far to the rear of the group, frowning, scuffing his boots in the dry Shire dust. Even England didn't realize this. If he had, he might have taken some steps to prevent the disaster at the party.

…

_Chapter was getting a little long, so this will be a two-parter, or maybe even three. I wanted to do a good thorough setup for their first experience with the magical travel. Longtime readers of my work might remember the Sanctum from a pair of Discworld/Hetalia crossovers I wrote a few years ago (which are no longer online)._


	3. The Shire II

**The Shire II.**

By the time they'd all reached the party field, everyone else seemed to be comfortable. Romano still felt awkward, but he didn't know what to do about it. It was obviously some kind of setup, though. It had to be! England had had a whole week to notify the moviemaking bastards that they were coming today, and this was all just a little too convenient. A party? Yeah, _right_. He'd sort it out later, though. Didn't want to make trouble in front of all these actors.

Romano did understand that he was antisocial. Hell, everybody knew that, even his friends. Especially his friends! They were the only three people in the world (well, and add Veneziano) who actually knew that he could be calm, have fun and relax.

But of course if – if this was real, if this was somehow not an England scam, then these people didn't know anything about Italy. He'd often daydreamed about something like this: going to a place where he had no prior history, and trying to behave rationally and make friends more easily. As a nation, of course, a place like this was impossible to find, and he also wasn't sure he could manage to behave right.

Chigi, it was so stupid! Look at the damn albino potato doing gymnastics in the middle of the fucking road. He was probably going to ask for a role in the next movie. Romano snorted and trudged along. There had to be a way to prove – or _disprove_ – this whole setup. Did he really want to keep tagging along with his friends to all the magical worlds? Or facsimiles of magical worlds, or whatever the hell they were? Maybe he shouldn't play along after this.

But this depressed him. He had more fun with these bastards than anybody else, and he'd absolutely hate to be left out, even if he wasn't really interested in the destination. He bit his lip. A-and it might upset England, if he said he didn't want to go anymore. Dammit.

The group rounded a corner and came upon the busy Party Field. Did it look like the movie set? Romano couldn't tell. He'd watched the movies when they'd first come out, and – well, it sort of looked right, but he'd never really know. He wasn't some analytical idiot that memorized every movie trying to find flaws with it.

He blinked, noticing that England was standing next to him. "You all right?" the blond asked quietly.

"Uh? Yeah, yeah, don't worry about me. I'll sit in the corner and should be all right." He would have said more, but a bunch of "hobbits" came forward to greet the large group.

Legolas took the lead, introducing the newcomers to Sam, Pippin, Merry, and a few others; each of the nations shook hands with all of them. "We're happy to be sharing in your special day," England pronounced portentously.

Sam Gamgee laughed and laughed. "Don't worry about it none. Just come and enjoy!" He gestured with a sweeping arm towards the crowds, some of whom were staring at him and the non-hobbit guests, but most of whom were already eating, drinking and smoking, catching up on gossip with friends new and old.

A very young child toddled up to Sam and grabbed him by the leg. "Grandpa?" she said in a quavering voice, staring nervously up at Denmark (easily the tallest person here). Romano stifled a laugh at her fearful expression.

The host swung her up into his arms. "Come on, little lass. Let's go find your mother." To the newly-arrived group he laughed, "Make yourselves at home!" before striding off to find his daughter. The young child continued to stare at Den, who waved at her; she broke into giggles as Sam took her away.

"Interesting to meet some new Men," Pippin grinned, staring them blatantly up and down.

"You have no idea," the Viking nation replied, smirking and shaking his hand once more. "What usually goes on at these parties?"

Gimli gestured to a picnic table that was currently unoccupied. "Come, let's sit and drink. Even the elf will have beer on this day, won't you?" He nudged Legolas and received an actual laugh in return. The four nations, with the four remaining members of the Fellowship, sat at the table.

Merry collared a young hobbit. "Beer and pipes for us all," he demanded, and the youth, looking awestruck, nodded and ran to fetch these things. "We have a little bit of clout," he then said modestly, making his friends laugh.

Romano sat on the edge of his bench. Somehow he'd ended up next to Legolas, who had Gimli and then Pippin on his other side; England, Prussia, Denmark and Merry were all opposite them. Shit. Well, at least he was opposite England. He smiled weakly at the bastard, getting a big happy smile in return. That was good. At least his friend wasn't pissed off at him for being unsociable. Romano decided his best bet would be to sit quietly, observe, and ask, once they were alone at home, whether it had been a prank. Surely the blond would be honest with him, when they were alone? He didn't mind coming along to all these things, he decided, but he needed honesty. That was the most important thing.

He squirmed a little, remembering that night when he'd pranked the three of them into drinking the yerba mate with habanero sauce. M-m-maybe they knew it had been a prank, and this was their payback? Dammit!

But before Romano could panic about this, the young hobbit and some friends came back bearing a few pitchers of beer, some mugs, pipes and tobacco. Predictably, the stupid albino potato and Den both reached for the beer, but to Romano's surprise, England picked up a pipe and lit up. Gimli kept an entire pitcher of beer for himself, and the rest of them shared out the other pitchers.

Romano hated beer, but it would be a good excuse for not speaking, if he kept drinking. Yeah. He'd suffer it, today. He picked up the mug and drank. Hmm. It was pretty good – for _beer._

"So, what brings you to our humble Shire?" Pippin asked, still grinning at Den.

"Not so humble any longer," Legolas pointed out. "Thanks to your bravery, the Shire's now famous throughout the land, where many did not know of it before." Merry and Pippin showed no signs of embarrassment at this, but laughed and drank, toasting the elf.

Prussia tried to find a way to explain their visit. "We – uh – we're – our friend, uh," he stumbled, pointing to England, who took up the discussion.

"We're just passing through. Trying to take more of an interest in the world around us."

"Not a very big pack, for four Men traveling the world." Merry raised an eyebrow and then yelped. "Stop kicking me, Pip. You know it's true."

"Maybe you're wizards?" the elf asked politely.

"Yeah! Eng—uh, Arthur is a wizard," Prussia blurted out, getting nasty frowns from his three friends. "What? What?"

"Just shut your mouth." Denmark cuffed him on the shoulder and explained, "We're trying to travel incognito."

Romano snorted and looked up from his second beer. "As if any group with the albino potato could stay undercover."

"Kesesese! Well, you got that right, Romano. Hey, get up and walk around with me," Prussia suggested. "Slow down on the beer; let's go see things."

"Cheh, well, all right." The Italian pushed himself up from the table. "Though this beer is a lot better than any other beer I've had."

"Shire beer is famous!" Pippin and Merry clanked their mugs in a toast to the Shire beer, and Romano managed not to snort as he walked off with Prussia, who began to argue the merits of German beer with him.

Gimli too rose from the table, saying he wanted to talk to Sam. The others waved them off.

"So where are you from?" Legolas politely asked Denmark.

He cast around wildly in his mind for an appropriate answer, but England replied, "Elsewhere."

_Elsewhere?_ Den snorted into his mug. What a stupid answer.

Yet, spreading his hands in acceptance of this, the elf replied, "Fair enough."

Before he could get further, England asked the two hobbits how many years it had been since their return to the Shire. "It must have been a while ago, if Sam's got grandchildren?"

"At least sixteen, then, I suppose," Merry decided, drinking more beer and sending a young hobbit off to fetch a few more pitchers. "Eighteen? We don't think much about the flow of time, do we, Pip?"

Pippin belched and reached for a pipe, laughing. "Not anymore. As long as I've got what I need, I'm all right. Pour me a beer."

For a while the five of them talked about the party, about the Shire in general. Denmark was really impressed, both with England's magic and with the people they'd met. He was excited about meeting Gimli and hoped to get a good look at the axe that he wore in a bandolier on his back, once the dwarf returned to the table.

A few minutes later Pippin upended his empty mug and possibly kicked his friend again. At any rate, Merry scowled, first at his friend, and then at the party in general. "Yes, where are those kids? We need our beer!" He got up and ran off.

In less than a minute, more beer arrived, on a tray held by a different youth. "A-are you friends with the Man who's all white?" one of them whispered to Denmark, who began laughing like mad. He knew Prussia must be loving this.

England rolled his eyes. "Incognito, my arse. Yes, he's our friend. Why?"

"He's going to sing a song, he said!" The hobbit girl's pale blue eyes were wide amongst her cloud of curly blond hair. "Look!" She turned and pointed.

Prussia stood on a picnic table that was surrounded by laughing hobbits and Gimli. From this distance Den couldn't hear him, but he saw his friend make a deep courtly bow and apparently begin singing. The hobbits in his audience began to clap along with the song, and Den felt a poke in his back.

"Move over, idiot." Romano sat between him and England. "I can't believe this." He reached for a pitcher and poured himself a new beer.

"Pfft." England gave him a wry grin. "Are you kidding? Gilbert's a lot like a hobbit himself, you know; just likes the simple things in life. To perform a song at a party like this is probably going to be the best experience he's ever had. Too bad he won't be able to brag about it." As part of the rules of travel, England had made them promise not to talk about their jaunts. He thought other nations would begin pestering him for similar adventures.

"What's he singing?" Den asked.

"Something about finding a bowl?" Romano drank some beer.

But England laughed. "Fathom the Bowl? That's a good one. I didn't realize he knew it."

By then, Prussia had finished singing; he hopped off the table and ran back to them. "That was so awesome! Did you see me? Did you? Listen to them clapping!" He plopped down on the end of the bench next to Pippin, across from Den.

"Yes, we saw you. Couldn't hear you, though." Denmark reached over and ruffled his hair. "They liked it, huh?" And indeed, the assembled crowd continued to clap and stare after him.

"Kesesese! Go up, Den. Go up and sing something!"

"Hah. I can't sing those kinds of songs on command. Let's see." Den leaned back on the bench. "Yeah, I got something I can do. Back in a bit." He slid out of the seat and wandered off to the performance table.

Gimli came back and sat next to Legolas again. "A good song, pale Man! A great song! I love drinking songs. Eh, my friend?" He turned to the elf with a hearty grin.

"I'm going to go speak to Sam" was Legolas' calm response, just as Merry came back and sat down again.

When the elf was out of earshot, everyone but Romano began to laugh. "You have to admit it's not his style," Pippin pointed out.

"Wonder what kind of performance the Viking bastard's doing?" By now Denmark was up on the table and bowed as Prussia had done.

"I'll go see." England got up, removing his cloak and packing it into their rucksack before walking over to the performance table. His friends watched him go.

Even before he arrived in the crowd Romano saw him cover his face with his hands, turn, and hurry back. "Well? Well? What's he doing, moron?"

"Bloody Beowulf. I should have guessed."

Romano didn't even reply. He just put his head down on the table.

"You okay?" Merry poked him. "Too much beer?"

"You can never have too much beer!" Pippin roared this out and finished half a pitcher at one go.

The Italian sat up and groaned. "Believe me. Any beer is too much beer!"

Both the hobbits looked affronted at that statement, and England gave his friend a little shove under the table. "Git," he whispered. "Don't offend our hosts!"

Denmark came back before Romano could answer, and Pippin's attention was distracted. "Eh, Merry, maybe we should go up and dance?"

"Sounds good to me." Merry finished his beer, pointedly eyeing the surly Romano, before getting up and following his friend.

The four friends were now alone at the table, so Denmark sat next to Prussia, opposite the others. "How did Beowulf go?" the albino asked.

"Ah, I only did the short version. Seems they were happier with your song." Den scratched his spiky hair. "Maybe this isn't the place for classical literature."

"You going to perform something, idiot?" Romano elbowed his friend.

England thought. "Can't think of anything. No, I can't be arsed to do anything like that. Come for a walk with me?" he asked Romano.

"I'd rather just sit. Take Den." Romano reached for the beer pitcher.

"Well? Want to go for a walk?"

"Yes, of course. Plus I think we ought to walk around and see more of the Shire before we go, you know? Get a real feel for the place?" They got up from the table and headed on a loop of the perimeter just as Sam came back to the table.

Romano sighed and drank some more. Sam sat next to Prussia, so Romano tried to observe, to see if this guy really was a real hobbit. Well, there was no actual way to do that without bending down and staring at his fucking feet, so he stopped trying and focused on the conversation.

"Eh, I love a good party." Sam puffed on his pipe. "You furriners enjoying yourselves?"

"It's awesome! I mean, a party! We didn't expect that at all."

Legolas returned and sat next to Romano. "And such a big party, too," the elf said. "Please pour me another glass of beer?" He reached his mug towards Sam, who obliged.

Romano wondered where England and Denmark were by now. He squirmed in his seat trying to find them, but this was a very big party, and there were hobbits everywhere, or hobbit actors, whatever the hell they were. He couldn't spot his friends, though he did see Merry and Pippin heading back to the table.

He turned back to the conversation and found that someone had poured him a new beer. Romano's head felt slightly fuzzy, but he picked it up and began to sip from it, staring at Legolas' ears, trying to see a seam where the makeup artist had applied the fake tips. Dammit, they were really very well-done ears. He couldn't see a line.

The elf bastard started blabbing to Prussia, and suddenly Romano couldn't take it any longer. He _had to know! _With a cry of "Chigi!" he reached up and yanked on Legolas' ear.

"What are you doing?" The elf angrily jerked away from his grip.

Romano then turned to Gimli, who had rushed over, and tugged on his beard. "Fake beard! Fake damn ears!" he muttered. Why wouldn't they come off?

"What kind of behavior is that?" Gimli roared, grabbing Romano by the front of his shirt and shaking him.

Prussia grabbed Romano, swinging him out of the way, and tried to babble an apology, but the Italian struggled in his arms, yelling, "Stupid filmmakers! Fake ears, fake fucking beards!"

The members of the Fellowship rallied in defense of their friends. While Legolas, now red-eared, merely frowned, all the others were boiling with rage. The pissed-off Merry jumped on the table and punched the albino in the face, just as Denmark and England pelted up to the scene. "Bloody _hell_, Romano," England snarled, grabbing his rude and drunk boyfriend from Prussia and flinging him to the ground. Romano scuttled under the table immediately.

By now this corner of the party had become a melee. The three remaining nations fought the legitimately angry Gimli, Merry, Pippin and Sam, while Legolas pleaded with them all to stop, insisting that their friend was merely drunk, that it was trivial. No one listened to him; they continued to fight and roar. Romano watched fearfully, hoping nobody would pull him out into the fight. _Dammit!_ Why couldn't he have kept his stupid hands to himself?

Several other hobbits tried to help Sam, Pippin and Merry against the albino potato and England, but the two nations threw the little people aside easily. It looked like Denmark, struggling against the dwarf, was the only one in serious trouble; that Gimli was a fighter, but so was Den. Hopefully his friend could beat the bastard.

Shit. Romano stayed under the table and watched, completely sober now. If this was the stupid movie set, they were toast, and England would probably be in huge trouble. Maybe he'd have to pay fines or something?

And if it wasn't the movie set? How the hell could they escape? He looked around and found the rucksack and England's staff, pulling them into his arms in preparation for a quick getaway.

Six hobbits piled on Prussia at once, knocking him to the ground, but he stood up with a roar and flung them all off at once like some kind of god emerging from a volcano. "Arthur! _Können wir fliegen?" (Can we fly?)_ Why the hell was he speaking German?

England's reply was also in that language. _"Muss die Kerze anzünden! Kannst es finden?"_ _(Have to light the candle! Can you find it?) _He punched Pippin in the face; the hobbit threw him to the ground and they began to wrestle.

"Den?_ Wo ist unser Beutel?" (Where is our bag?)_

"Under the table! With Romano!" The Viking bellowed this out, still struggling with Gimli.

"Romano! _Die Kerze finden!" (Find the candle!)_

Chigi, that albino bastard was a fucking irritant. "Shut up, you stupid potato! I don't want to speak your damn language! I've got it here."

"How the bloody hell am I supposed to light the damn – urgh – thing?" the island nation growled, taking a knee in the gut from Pippin. "Gilbert! Help me out," he begged.

Prussia dealt Merry a strong blow, knocking him backwards, and came to England's aid, shoving between his friend and Pippin. "Go. Make a distraction," he hissed. "Then they'll back off long enough for us to get away!" He began to fight, leaving England free to snag the bag and his staff from Romano and run to a space in the road.

A big hobbit that they hadn't met yet ran after him. Shit, Romano hoped they could all escape from this mess! He hoped that big bastard actor wasn't beating England up in the road. Anxious, he stayed hiding under the table, not able to see England, though Den and Prussia were still ferociously defending themselves. Then suddenly a roar went up from the crowd: a roar of awe, not of anger. The hobbits that Romano could still see stopped their fighting and turned around; most of them simply gave up what they were doing and loped off. What the fuck?

The albino potato threw off Pippin one last time; that hobbit, eye swollen shut, looked towards his family and friends, grinned, and ran off, calling out, "Come away, Merry! Fireworks! Just like in old Gandalf's time!"

Merry, who had been lying on the ground moaning, leaped up and smiled as well, chasing after his friend. Sam shook his head and followed. "Get out of here!" he yelled hoarsely over his shoulder, leaving a bemused Prussia standing bleeding and panting next to Legolas (who had not taken part in the fight at all), and Denmark still fiercely grappling with Gimli.

"Come on, wankers!" they heard. "Bring Romano!"

Denmark obligingly flung Gimli across the picnic table, where he fell with a thump. Then, bleeding, cursing, bruised, he and Prussia each bent down and grabbed one of Romano's arms, dragging him out from underneath the picnic table and running to England's side. There was the big hobbit that Romano had noticed before. He stood to the side, scowling, with his arms crossed, tapping a hairy foot as if waiting for something. But at least he wasn't fighting England.

"What do we do?" Den gasped, holding his side.

"Face the candle, hold hands." The island nation, bleeding as well, put the strap of the bag over his arm and handed the staff to Den, who tucked it under his arm. England took a hand each of Prussia and Romano, and began the chant to go home. The Italian watched the big hobbit frown, but at the last second he thought the bastard waved at them sadly.

…

They appeared in England's Sanctum within seconds. The blond dropped the rucksack and immediately swiveled to punch Romano in the nose. "Ow! You fucking _bastard!_ What the hell are you doing?" He tried to storm out of the room but Prussia grabbed him.

"You totally deserved that, Romano," he wheezed, flinging the half-nation against the bookcase. Ouch. Wow, the albino potato looked bad – a cut on his face oozed blood, and he had a black eye already.

Denmark nodded agreement. "What the hell was the matter with you?" He looked down at his torn, stained clothing, his bruised knuckles. "Shit, I'd expect something like that from Prussia, but not you. I thought you had manners." He pressed a hand to his ribs again. "Shit," he repeated.

"Come on; let's all go up to the kitchen and get cleaned up." England, bleeding freely from his nose, tossed the rucksack into the corner of the room, lay his staff on the floor, and headed up the stairs, pressing the hem of his shirt to his face.

Romano followed slowly. At least it seemed nobody was going to hit him again. Shit, his nose hurt! England was going to pay for that.

Or…well…maybe not. The blond looked pretty bad. Maybe Romano should go easy on him. It might make his own situation less painful, too. He knew he was in deep shit.

"Well? What the hell were you thinking?" Prussia asked, once they'd reached the kitchen.

"I – I'll talk to England about it later." He collapsed into a chair. "Who was that big guy at the end?" he asked, trying to change the subject. "Bouncer kind of bastard?"

"Don't change the subject, git. You'll talk about it now, and you'll talk about it to all three of us. In case you hadn't noticed, we all fought to keep you safe, so you didn't have to get involved, though you started it. Tell us what the bloody hell you were thinking." England threw Prussia a dishtowel, which he soaked under cold tap water before dabbing at his face. "You pulled on his _ears?_"

"Whatever it was, it was stupid. You're a total _Arschloch_, Romano. No wonder nobody wants to be friends with you."

"Shut up, you stupid potato head." He hid his face in his hands. Shit, a whole afternoon full of lectures, he'd bet. Not that he didn't deserve it, though.

"Were you that drunk?" England wondered, finally mopping up his own injuries. "Here, Den, here's an ice pack." He handed this to Denmark. Then to Romano again, "I can't believe you could behave so bloody badly."

"Fake fucking movie bastards," the half-nation muttered.

"You've got to be kidding. You still think it was a setup?" Denmark alternated holding the bag to his ribs and then his temple. "Listen, why would England lie to you?"

"For a prank! You know how we are with each other. It's just so stupid. _Middle-Earth_." He snorted and then cradled his head in his hands, resting his elbows on the table. Fuck, yes, he knew he'd behaved badly. Yes, he could blame some of it on the beer, but in his heart he knew most of it was just due to his antagonism. He didn't want people to think he was stupid enough to fall for that shit!

He felt a gentle touch on his back and raised his head to see England standing beside him. Amazed, he watched as the blond knelt down next to his kitchen chair. "You should know I'd never try to – to trick you. Not after before." Romano could see England's cat collar, and he felt like the lowest of the low. "Even if I wanted to prank these two gits," his friend went on, "I'd only do it with your connivance. I did my best to provide a legitimate and unusual adventure for you all."

Romano took a deep breath. "I – I know you meant well, bastard. All of you. I – I'm sorry I behaved so – so shamefully. It was stupid."

"But there's something more," England suggested, not a question.

He nodded. "N-nobody else really believes in your magic," he replied in a weak tone. "I hear nations always laughing about it, saying that all you really do is dress up in Harry Potter costumes and light incense and shit like that. I hate being the butt of jokes, hate it so much. And if the other nations found out – dammit, I can just imagine all the crap I'd hear about it. Even my idiot brother doesn't believe in your magic, and he believes in fucking _tomato fairies_. I – I don't want to bring ridicule on myself." Romano still felt miserable, but knowing the pranks they'd played on others, how could he ever be sure this hadn't been a prank?

"And you didn't want to be tarred with the same brush," Denmark nodded, coming to sit at the table. "I can kind of understand that. If you 'fell for it,' as you say, then you'd look bad to a lot of nations, not just us."

"Well, that'd be true if, _if,_ Arthur had pranked all three of us, but it wasn't a prank!" Prussia took the third chair; England finally got off the floor and sat in the remaining chair. "It really was Middle-Earth. That big guy in the road was The Shire, wasn't he? Wasn't he?" he asked England eagerly.

"What?" Romano could not believe this. "Don't try to pull that shit."

"Yes, that was the personification of The Shire. I'd have liked to talk to him, but…no." He scowled at Romano. "Git."

Prussia frowned too. "That would have been awesome."

"Pfft. Yeah." Den kicked the leg of Romano's chair. "And I wanted to talk to Gimli some more, check out his axe."

Romano kept silent. His brain hurt; all these thoughts swirled around in his head and he couldn't think straight. "Fuck," he said, to let them know he wasn't falling for it.

The island nation cleared his throat and asked Romano, "Do you not want to go on any more adventures with us?"

Prussia blinked. "You mean you're still willing to take us, after this? That's cool."

"Well, you know, I do like hanging out with you wankers. And I like a bit of adventure in my life, and I like creating opportunities for you to have fun, too. We always seem to enjoy ourselves, and this is a little thing I can do that no one else can offer, like when you take us to the Nürburgring. Without this, I'd probably be sitting home alone a lot, when Romano was busy with you two."

Romano felt like a dick, at that. He'd not even considered England's rationale for this, or how he would feel if they all stopped having the adventures. Could he man up enough to deal with it properly? "I – I'm sorry," he repeated, rubbing his forehead, staring at the tabletop. "I was a total shithead. Didn't think about your feelings," he growled, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice. He was encouraged by this calm and rational discussion, instead of a lot of arguing, even though it made him feel so bad. Maybe he could be more flexible, he thought in misery. "C-could you prove it, though? Prove it was really Middle-Earth?"

All three of his friends thought about this. "I can't," England finally conceded. "There's nothing that happened today that could prove it was real. I'm sorry. It was real, and I know it, but I can't offer you proof."

"Well. What about this?" Prussia leaned his chair back on the rear legs, grinning. "Next time – if Romano is willing to go – we go to a place that's more unusual. Like, maybe Oz, or Narnia, or some other place with magical creatures that don't exist here?"

"We could do that. If you meet a talking animal – one that could absolutely not be a bloody actor in a costume – and speak with him, or her, will that convince you?"

"But you have to promise to behave!" Denmark admonished.

Romano reached out his hands to England and Denmark, smiling bravely at the albino potato who sat across from him. "Let me sleep on it, bastards, okay? I'll let you know in the morning." Dammit. He had deserved that punch, but he didn't deserve such supportive and understanding friends.

…

_Of course he's going to say yes._

_Like Romano above, I'm not one of these timeline fanatics. I'll do my best to stick with the correct characters at the appropriate time frame, but other than Discworld, Dalemark and Hogwarts, I'm likely to slip up somewhere. Other worlds, such as Narnia, Oz, Barsoom (where America will probably join them), will be a mishmash of characters and settings that I can remember, and for any that had movie adaptations, elements of the movies will probably creep in as well. _

_I have also realized that it would be idiotic to try to stick with the magical worlds' canon. That would mean that a trip to Hogwarts would be all about Harry's kids, etc., which I don't want to write, and you probably don't want to read. It also means that I'd have to finish reading the entire canon of Oz (fourteen novels!) and reread all of Narnia, which is a huge amount of research. _

_Arschloch = asshole_


	4. The Emerald City

**The Emerald City.** (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum)

"I wish I knew where he was taking us," Prussia laughed, as the three friends headed towards London. "He told me I could wear whatever I wanted!" He gestured towards the tie-dye hoodie, this time paired with black jeans and green high-top sneakers, the sunglasses perched on his head.

Denmark wore the basics: red tee, black jeans, boots. "I know. It's bound to be fun if he's letting me bring my cultural artifact." He patted the axe's handle.

Romano just grunted, which put Prussia and Den on instant alert. "Now, listen, Romano. No beer! You've got to behave today. Got to!"

"I know, stupid. I plan to. As for _beer_…pfft."

"Do you know where we're heading?"

"No fucking idea." He wore all black, as usual. "We'll find out soon enough."

When they rang England's doorbell, the door swung mysteriously open, with the island nation nowhere in sight. "Uh…Arthur?"

"Muhahahaha!" he laughed, from somewhere. They couldn't spot him. "Go into the kitchen, wankers," he added, in his regular voice.

"Dammit," Romano whispered, clinging to Den for protection as they squeezed into the small kitchen. "I hate this spooky shit."

"Boo," England said softly, behind them.

Both Romano and Denmark jumped, though Prussia stayed calm. "Hey, how are you?" He hugged the blond. "You look like a leprechaun." Deep green in color, his casual clothes matched his eyes.

His friends snorted with laughter while England scowled. "I have my reasons. Shut it."

"Yes, all right, Arthur. Sorry."

"I know. Anyway, are you all ready? Romano? Going to behave?"

"Yes, yes, yes, I promise." He gave England a brief hug. "I don't want to piss you off again, or get you all beat up."

"Hey!" Prussia corrected with a grin. "_We_ are the ones who do the beating up! Kesesese!"

"Cheh, whatever. Where are we going, bastard?"

The blond beamed at them, gesturing towards the basement stairs. "We're off to see the Wizard."

…

"Woohoo!" Prussia stood in amazement, because they had simply appeared in the middle of the busy Emerald City street and no one had given them a second glance. "Arthur, this is still so cool!" He spun in place, staring at all the scurrying people, busy with their day jobs, or whatever. "Why isn't anyone paying attention to us?"

"We're invisible, at the moment."

Den and Prussia gaped, but Romano snorted. "Prove it."

"Simple. Go talk to someone. Or walk in front of a horse, or a person. Just don't do anything to disrupt them."

The Italian shrugged, but nervously made his way to a soldier or guard type of man standing at the side of the road with a pike in his hand. The man, wearing little round green glasses, yawned. "Excuse me," Romano said loudly; the man jumped and whipped his head around, as if trying to find the source of the words.

Romano shook his head and stood right in the man's field of vision, waving his hand back and forth, but it truly seemed as though he was invisible. England dragged the other two to his side, gently plucking the now-silent half-nation's sleeve and shifting him away from the guard. "Watch out, I'm going to make us visible." He shook his hands free of the sleeves of his sweater, and then performed a complicated wave and a two-syllable chant.

Nothing looked any different, but the guard leaped back in alarm, because they'd materialized very close to him. "Oh!" Prussia grabbed him to steady him. "Are you all right? Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

The man seemed to recover, but before he could speak, Romano poked England. "This isn't the Emerald City," he pointed out. "It's not all green." And that was true. Trees had typical brown trunks, people wore vibrant, many-colored clothing, and standard-colored horses pulled plain wooden carts. Red poppies grew by the side of the road, and a white chicken pecked its way along the gutter, searching for food.

"Of course the city is green," the guard said, somewhat warily, his gaze flicking from the manic, bouncing Prussia to the blade of Denmark's axe, towering over their heads.

"Cheh, it is to you, because you're wearing green glasses!"

The man blinked. "Oh, of course. You four are breaking the law. You must wear green glasses."

"Well, that sucks," Den laughed, "because we don't have any." He turned to England. "Unless you brought some?"

"No, but we should be able to get some at the gate. Come along. Thanks for the reminder," he called back to the guard as they hurried away. "And please moderate your language here," he asked his friends, eying Romano specifically.

"I'm confused," the brunet admitted, nodding to acknowledge the request. "I always thought the Emerald City was green. Thus the name 'Emerald'?"

But he remained calm, if sarcastic, and the other three were proud of him. "Well, there is a bit of a continuity problem," the island nation explained as they walked. "Baum, you know, the author, he – he didn't always remember what he'd seen, or something. I'm not even sure how many times he visited. His first book told of Dorothy and her friends meeting the Wizard, right? That's what they used for the famous movie." He waited for confirming nods before continuing. "At that time, he wrote that the Emerald City was not really green, but that the Wizard made everyone wear the green glasses. But in later books he wrote that it was in fact built of emeralds and gold, and he never mentioned the green glasses again. I – I have only been here once, and it was like this, and so I have to wonder whether he embellished the truth for his readers. That was a rather poor era, and maybe these fantastic tales of great wealth ignored were a way to drum up readership and sell more books. Escapism, with a luxurious twist."

"You know what," Prussia suggested. "It was fun not knowing where we were going to end up today, but I think you should tell us ahead of time from now on. Then we could read the books or watch the movies, or whatever."

"That's a great idea, T. K." Den patted his head. "Get a little vacation research done, sort of."

"All my ideas are great ideas."

Predictably, Romano snorted at that; England patted his shoulder. "You're doing well," he whispered.

"Bastard," the brunet hissed with a grin, low enough that no natives could overhear.

However, nobody paid much attention to them as they walked, except to keep an eye on the axe, until they reached the gate. "Here, now!" the gate guard bellowed. "You're breaking the law!"

"We are aware of it," England said calmly. "We hoped you might have some spare glasses for travelers."

"Oh." He seemed taken aback. "Y-yes, I do. Thank you for asking." He held out a box full of green spectacles and each of the nations put on a pair; Prussia had to hang his own sunglasses from his collar.

"Thanks!" Den shook the man's hand after he'd put them on. "Wow. It really is emerald now."

"Well? Well? What do we do now?" Prussia danced along the road.

"I suppose you want to meet some famous Oz people, yeah? Let's go to the palace." England gestured towards the center of the city.

"You look funny in those little round glasses," the albino laughed.

"And you don't? Shut it."

They walked in silence, with all three of the Skirmish Brothers gawking at everything they'd seen so far. "This still doesn't prove it," Romano pointed out.

"Prove what?" a soft, sweet voice said from nearby. "Visitors in the Emerald City seeking proof of something?"

The four travelers stopped walking and looked around for the source of the voice. Then England got a grin on his face and walked to the side of the road, leaning against a green lamppost. "Well? What is it?" Denmark asked, hurrying after him. Prussia followed, but Romano stayed in the road, eyes narrowed, while he searched for the speaker.

England jerked his chin towards the dust at his boyfriend's feet. "Look there."

All of them glanced down at the street. Something sat there – stood there – something? Like a mirage, shifting and twisting, difficult to see. Prussia squinted, but Romano apparently had a better view. "An invisible cat?" he asked, hands on hips. "That's a good one. Where's the ventriloquist?"

"I'm not 'invisible,'" the cat pointed out acerbically. "I'm _glass._ Transparent. See? You can see my ruby heart, and as for my eyes, they're emerald."

Romano shrugged and bent down to peer at it. "Yes, they are," he conceded. "And you're the one talking to me?" His friends watched with bated breath, hoping he wouldn't explode or do something rude.

"Of course I am," the cat replied. "Read my lips."

He laughed. "Cats don't have lips."

This evoked a sneer from the transparent feline. "You are aware of what I meant, I'm sure." She absently groomed a glass paw with a clear tongue before turning back to him and asking, "Are you going to introduce yourself?"

"Kesesese! He's doing very well!"

"I heard that, ba-Prussia." The brunet hunkered down and extended his hand to the cat. "My friends call me Romano."

She tilted her head before generously placing a paw into the palm of his hand. "And I am known as Bungle."

"Bungle? That's a weird name for such a beautiful creature," Den burst out.

The cat looked at the three of them by the side of the road, and then back to Romano. "I might be persuaded," she offered, "to allow you to carry me, and then I can talk to all your friends more easily?"

Romano seemed to understand that the cat considered this a great honor, and so he replied, "I would be delighted, _Signorina_ Bungle." He held out his arms and she crept daintily into them, settling down as he rose to his feet.

Prussia and Denmark hurried over. "Wow! So you're an awesome talking cat."

"I did just say that," she pointed out.

Den laughed. "May I pet you? We have no glass cats at home."

"You may," she condescended. Den and Prussia took turns petting her, and her purrs grew louder as she nestled into the snug hold of Romano's arms.

"Hey," that nation called to England, who had stayed by the lamppost. "Coming over here, or what?"

He pushed himself up and joined them. "Good morning, Miss Bungle. My name is England, and these are my friends Denmark and Prussia."

"Kesesese! Pleased to meet you!"

"You mentioned wanting proof? Proof of what?" She turned her elegant head towards Romano, who had the grace to blush.

"Never mind," he stammered, "I – I think I got my proof."

Prussia cackled with laughter and petted the glass head again. "Wow – you're actually purring!"

"It's quite comfortable in Romano's arms."

At that, Romano blushed again, and England smiled fondly at him, raising his eyebrows. "Ah, come along, gits. Let's go to the palace."

The brunet, with Bungle, dawdled in the back of the group, and they could hear them speaking to each other, but Den had a different concern. "L. Frank Baum was American, right? So, has America ever been here?"

"Hey, yeah! Awesome question, even though I'm the brains of this group."

England snorted before responding. "America is the most lazy-arse wanker that ever lived. He just keeps recycling the same old stuff, and embellishing it a little, instead of coming back to do actual new research. He says he 'can't be bothered,' even though he keeps making Oz-related entertainment."

"I did notice that. Not just with Oz," Den admitted, "but he recycles a lot of stories and plots."

"Be fair, though. Arthur does too. Everything always seems to go back to Shakespeare."

"You really are a git, Gilbert. Anyway, it's just up here." The island nation gestured to the palace and turned back to make sure Romano was all right.

Apparently he was. He and the cat, deep in conversation, didn't even notice. "Hey! Romano!" Denmark reached the axe back and poked his friend in the shoulder with the butt end. "Pay attention so you don't get lost."

"S-sorry. Miss Bungle was just telling me about some m-m-magical tomatoes they have around here." He blushed so deeply that even the cat chuckled.

"You do love your tomatoes," Prussia conceded. "Maybe we can find them later? But we're almost at the palace now."

"And," the cat said softly, "while it's very gentlemanly of you to call me 'Miss' Bungle, it's not strictly necessary." She made a noise that sounded like a discreet cough, placing her paw in front of her mouth.

"Very well," the brunet smiled. "'Bungle' it is."

Together the four friends and the cat stepped into the palace grounds. "This is pretty nice," Denmark said, looking around nonchalantly.

Hah. Prussia knew that look. Bet Den was trying not to look like a tourist! "Kesesese! Hey, we should have made some kind of a bet."

"What kind of a bet?" Den asked with interest, while England rolled his eyes.

"I don't know. How come I always have to come up with the awesome bets? Let's try to think of one for next time, though."

"Suits me. Romano?"

"Cheh, sure, whatever, bas—you guys."

They all laughed and then entered the palace itself, which had many people – these dressed in actual green (Prussia knew this because he kept pushing his green glasses down to check on things) – thronging around. "Step over there," the cat directed Romano, and he beckoned his smiling friends with a jerk of his head.

Inside a large, empty, quiet room, they found four seats in a row along one wall, and sank gratefully into them. Den propped the axe against the wall, and Romano helped the informative Bungle to sit on his lap. "What room is this?" he asked her, turning to England in case he knew. "Why have such a big room with nothing in it?" A long pillared corridor stretched away from them, leading to somewhere so distant that they couldn't make it out.

But before he got his answer, the Doppler sound of an approaching scream startled them all, although Bungle did not run off. A very young blond girl ran right up to Romano and slapped him in the face, still screaming incoherently.

"What? What the hell? I mean, I – uh – " He stood up abruptly and Bungle leaped gracefully to the floor, moving off to the side.

"What's going on here?" Den stood up and loomed over the screaming child.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves! How dare you make fun of my friends!" she yelled, shoving him away. "You can't hold a candle to them. _Courage_, hah!" She kicked the panicked, frozen Romano, this time, before turning to Den and shrilly shrieking, "A heart! A _heart!_ You have no heart! Nobody with a heart could do this, you meanie!" She shoved him again and, amused, he let himself fall back into the chair. Then, to Prussia: "If you did have a brain, you wouldn't dare mistreat this poor cat inside the palace!" And finally to England: "And you call yourself a _wizard_? You couldn't _stop_ 'em? Come along, Bungle, do!"

Denmark, to stop her hurting his friends, brought his axe down between her and them like a gate, still trying to remain polite, though Prussia could tell he was getting irritated by the noise. "Stop."

But this action made things worse. Her shouts changed to an arbitrary shrill scream, high and panicky, and she ran off. "I'm going to tell Ozma about you! How dare you threaten me with an axe? You'll be in big trouble! Mocking my friends! An _axe! _Help, Ozma!_" _ Comments of a similar nature dwindled as she ran away down the long corridor.

Romano stood staring, his eyes wide and breathing labored, the mark of her handprint reddening on his face; Den rested the axe against the wall again.

"Wh-what on earth was all that about?" Prussia wondered, watching her run off. He bent down to rub his bruised calf. "Iggy?"

Bungle hadn't left, though. "I do apologize," she said, calmly, pacing back and forth. "You meat people are so emotional. I don't get emotional, you see, because I'm glass. No glands."

"Who was that little girl?"

"That? That was the Princess' best friend. Her name's Dorothy."

Prussia's jaw dropped. "Th-_that_ was _Dorothy?_ But she was just a little girl!" He'd always thought of Dorothy as – well, as Judy Garland.

"Dorothy is only eleven," Bungle pointed out. "As such, apparently she has more emotional mood swings than older people. I can't be certain but it always seems that way. I never cared enough to find out." She began grooming her ears.

"It sounded like she thought we were mocking her friends? My guess is she thought Denmark was taking the mickey out of the Tin Woodsman."

Prussia hooted with laughter. "The axe. The axe! And she thought Romano was making fun of the Cowardly Lion, and me mocking the Scarecrow!"

"Cheh, well, she got that right. No brains in there." Romano flopped back into the seat and flicked him in the forehead.

"Ow," he laughed, giving Romano a little shove. "Seriously, though? That's kind of backwards. She didn't even give us a chance to explain, just ran right up and smacked you."

"Well, she is only eleven, Gilbert. Little kids are like that. Remember when we were little?"

All four of them grew silent, thinking about the temperamental little kids they'd been. (Romano snorted, and Prussia knew just what he was thinking, so he winked.) "You're still a childish bastard," the brunet growled under his breath, rolling his eyes and laughing a little.

England's concerns were a little more immediate. "What's this Princess like?" he asked Bungle. "Are we actually likely to be in some kind of real trouble?"

"It's hard to say. Sometimes she's nice, but sometimes she's very arbitrary. I used to have the most beautiful pink brains – you could see 'em work – but she had them removed and replaced with clear ones, because she thought I was getting above my station." The cat snorted delicately. "It didn't daunt me at all. You see I'm just as beautiful. Possibly even more so, because the sight of the brains isn't there to distract my admirers."

But the four friends had stopped listening to Bungle's self-praise and all stood up together. Marching feet could be heard; a young woman dressed all in green advanced down the long corridor at the head of a small group of twelve well-dressed soldiers. "Uh – ba-uh – England? Maybe we ought to get out of here?"

But Denmark's axe flew away by magic and landed in the outstretched hand of a soldier, who passed it to the back of the group. The princess Ozma, a tall and slender girl, stepped forward and announced, "You are hereby under arrest for carrying weaponry in the palace and threatening our citizens! Take them to the jail!"

"Wait, wait, please wait a minute, please," England argued, stepping forth, hands up in protest. "We have come in good faith to visit your –"

"And I need my axe –"

"_Take them to the jail!_" she demanded, and the soldiers hastened to do her bidding. Two of them went with her – taking Den's axe – and the other ten escorted the prisoners away.

"Hey, wait, you stupid –"

Den clapped his hand over Romano's mouth and held him while he struggled. "Don't make it worse."

Romano went limp and nodded, so Denmark let go of him. "Come on," the brunet hissed to England. "Uh – _lass uns gehen?" (Let's go?)_

_"Nicht ohne Dens Axt." (Not without Den's axe.)_

"No speaking in code," one of the soldiers rapped out.

"No speaking at all," another one said.

_Scheisse,_ Prussia thought. Now what?

…

_Stay tuned._

_One of the most disconcerting things about the Oz books is how frequently Baum referred to humans and other non-magical creatures as "meat" or "meat people." Apparently he'd once written a chapter where vegetable people "grew" human children in a garden for food, but the publishers made him take that out!_

_'The Patchwork Girl of Oz' was the first Oz book I ever read, so Bungle (and Scraps) are two of my favorite characters._

_Next time a nation tries to set up a talent show, I'm guessing Prussia will push for an Oz skit. I hadn't realized how nicely these four slot into those roles until I started writing this chapter. I may draw them in this context._


	5. The Emerald City II

_Happy Labor Day._

…

**The Emerald City II.**

Five minutes later the four of them had been "incarcerated" in a nice green manor home on the outskirts of the city. The soldiers flung them into soft, comfortable couches in a large library with a roaring, applewood-scented fire. "This is prison?" Prussia asked in disbelief.

"Yes."

"Prisons are supposed to be cold and miserable," Romano pointed out. "To punish the prisoners."

"Shh! Don't give them ideas!"

But the head soldier laughed. "That's a sure way to make a criminal stay a criminal. We hope that by treating you well, you'll see the error of your ways, and want to go straight." He saluted. "The home is under guard. Do not attempt to escape."

They listened to the sound of retreating boots and then as if by instinct congregated in the center of the library. "Well? Can we get out of here?" Romano wondered quietly.

England shook his head _no._ "Can't. Can't go without Denmark's axe. We can't leave anything here, and we can't take anything away from the magical worlds, either. We'll have to figure out some way to get it back, and as soon as we do, we can go."

"This sucks big-time." Den flopped into a chair.

The brunet scowled at him from across the room. "Why'd you bring the damn thing, anyway?"

"Hey, I'm a fighter, Romano! Just shut up and think about how we can get the axe back."

Prussia had an idea. "Can you pull it to us by magic? Like Harry Potter does with his _Accio_ spell?"

"Could try it. Maybe you gits had better leave the room, so nobody accidentally gets his head cut off as the axe flies in." The island nation grinned mirthlessly.

"_Can_ we leave the room? Maybe we could just leave the house, despite what they said." Romano peeked out the window. "He said it was under guard, but I don't see anyone."

"Pfft. Don't risk it. If they split us up we could be in real trouble." England shooed the three of them towards a different door. "See if there's anything to eat in here, or some tea. I'll call you when I've got it."

They left the room. "Shit."

"Kesesese! Better get all your swearing out, while we have the chance." They found a kitchen; Prussia and Den began to rummage in cabinets (which all seemed to be empty).

"Fucking stupid shithead potato." But they could all tell Romano's heart wasn't in it. "At least you can't blame this one on me."

"True. Well, there's nothing in here," the Viking said, slamming the last cabinet door. "Fuck."

England appeared. "No go."

"What? Why?"

"Guess my magic's different, that's all." He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat. "I wonder what's going to happen next."

"Arthur, tell me something. I've been wondering about this and I didn't pay much attention on the Shire day. How much time passes in the real world, while we're here? If we stayed overnight, would it be tomorrow when we got back?"

"Time is time," the island nation sighed. "Nothing can slow it or change it." He flashed his wristwatch at them. "No matter where we go, no matter what we do, that clock, the clock in London, is always running**."**

"So…if we don't come back tonight, West will worry?"

"Pfft. Depends. What did you tell him?"

"I didn't tell him anything, because I didn't know where we were going!"

Romano kicked him. "Stupid. He'll probably just think we're on a drinking binge or something."

"Oh, right! Kesesese! Didn't think of that."

Denmark laughed. "We need to do that again one of these days."

"Shh." England held up his hand for silence. "Someone's coming."

Strange quiet footsteps approached from outside on the gravel. "Bungle, maybe?" Den wondered. "Someone lightweight. Not a soldier."

They heard a knock at the door, so the four of them walked out to answer it.

"Whoa, the awesome Scarecrow!" Prussia yelled with a grin, reaching out to shake his hand. "And – and – and – someone I don't know! Come in!"

"Git. This isn't a home for us to entertain in."

But the grinning Scarecrow and his companion pushed forward into the house. "It's quite all right," the Scarecrow told them, shooing them towards the library.

His companion, a garishly-colored person that they might have called 'Scarecrow-ish,' now spoke.

"One and three and two  
We're here to talk to you!  
A bunch of fuss  
Has come to us  
And this is nothing new!"

She bowed.

"Wh-who?" Romano managed.

"Oh! Forgive me, do," the Scarecrow told them all. "May I present my charming companion, Miss Scraps Patchwork."

England introduced the friends. "We're terribly sorry to have caused any trouble. We merely came to see the sights. My friend's axe is actually considered a cultural artifact." All four nations suppressed smiles.

"Hmm." The Scarecrow gestured to them to sit, and everyone did so, staring at this famous character and his oddball companion.

Scraps was indeed patchwork – it appeared as though she'd been sewn together out of an old quilt, and when they shook her hand it felt like a glove stuffed with cotton. She had a most unusual expression on her face – almost goggle-eyed – and acted extremely deferential towards the Scarecrow, whom she clearly adored. "What are we gonna do now?" she asked him. "They're probably not really in trouble. Ozma likes to overreact and ask questions later."

"Hmm," the Scarecrow said again, his straw crackling. "If only the Wizard were here, he could tell us what to do."

"Kesesese! I thought you were the famous brains of the outfit! Why do you need the Wizard to help you?" Prussia leaped up and shook his hand again. This was awesome! He and the Scarecrow stood in the center of the room, grinning and shaking madly, and then the straw man's hand fell off. "Uh? Whoops!" The albino held it in the air, wildly embarrassed.

"Oh, don't worry about it," the Scarecrow told him, reaching out with his other hand to take it back, while the four nations stared in amazement, holding their breath. "Happens all the time. I can get someone to sew it back on for me."

"Y-you're sure?" Wow, Prussia was really relieved. He'd been afraid this would make their 'jail' stay even longer!

"Yes, it's fine." He put the hand into a pocket. "Remind me to get that taken care of," he told Scraps.

"It's that Dorothy's fault," Scraps said unwisely. "It always is. She goads Ozma into these snap decisions. I talked to Bungle before we got here and she confirmed it. If she hadn't done that, your elegant hand would still be attached!"

The Scarecrow turned to her in distress. "Please don't speak ill of my friend Dorothy!"

"You know it's true." She cleared her throat and began another one of her quirky poems.

"Dorothy likes to shout,  
She lets her temper out.  
If she don't stop  
I'll take a mop  
And hit her on the snout! Ha ha!"

Scraps applauded her own recitation. The still-embarrassed Prussia wondered if he should clap too, just to be friendly, but by the time he'd decided to do it, the Patchwork Girl stopped, and instead had begun pacing the room, examining all the knick-knacks and standing well clear of the fire.

"Look, this isn't solving anything." England's distress was clear to see. He appealed to the Scarecrow. "We don't want to cause trouble, and we don't want to be _in_ trouble. If we could just get Denmark's axe back, we'd go." Romano looked sad at this, but nobody wanted to get into a big discussion right now. Maybe he wanted to say goodbye to Bungle?

The Scarecrow paced some more. "We could bring you the axe," he finally said. "I can distract the guards while Scraps heroically dodges in to fetch it, and once we were out of the palace nobody would bother us."

"Awesome, a stealth mission! Can I help?"

"Red-eyed man, you're a prisoner," the Scarecrow pointed out. "Stay here. Obey the law."

"Such as it is," Scraps added absently, picking up a china cherub.

"Do you think you could manage to obtain the axe, my dear?" The straw man eyed her anxiously.

She simpered. "Since you have such faith in me, I'm certain that I can." She tapped her fingers against her lips. "Bungle might help. She seemed very fond of you all."

"We made her purr," Prussia laughed.

Both the visitors stared in astonishment. "That's amazing," the Scarecrow confessed. "She's never usually happy enough to purr."

Romano smirked, but Scraps added, "She's just an old sourpuss. I bet she avoids purring just to spite us all."

The friends all grinned at this. "So you'll try to get his axe for us?" England asked, still trying to focus. "What happens if the plan fails?"

"My plans never fail," the Scarecrow announced, one finger pointing to the sky.

"Huh. I've heard that before..." Romano muttered this loudly enough for all his friends to hear, but nobody rose to it.

"I guess we'll just wait here, then." Denmark sat back onto a couch. "How soon could we expect you back?"

"We can go right now, unless Scraps is tired?" He turned to her in concern.

"Not tired at all," she replied, standing to recite poetry once more.

"We're gonna get that axe  
Unless it's made of wax.  
Then it would bend  
Which would depend  
On getting all the facts!"

"That's so brilliant that it doesn't even make sense," the Scarecrow told her admiringly, taking her hand. "Come along. Let's go."

"We'll be back," she sang out as they left the manor house.

When the door had closed behind them, Romano snorted. "Can't believe you ripped his hand off."

"But at least it proves he's real! Arthur, you've done it again."

"I know, git."

"Anyway, I bet they're not going to be any help." Romano fiddled with the cushions on the couch.

"Are you kidding? They awesomely will. You know he's famous for his brains. Bet he's an amazing strategist."

"Yeah, all right." The half-nation fell back into a couch. "We'll see."

England slouched over and sat next to him, nudging him with his knee. "Don't worry. It's just a little mix-up. Even if they don't manage to bring it tonight, I'm sure we can explain things to Ozma in the morning and get it straightened out."

"I hope we're not here too long. I have municipal meetings all week long." Den wandered around the room much as Scraps had done, looking at book titles on the shelves and scowling.

"Kesesese! What would you rather be doing, having adventures in Oz or going to municipal meetings?" Prussia pinched his cheek.

"Going to municipal meetings!" Den roared. "Some of us actually have responsibilities, you know!"

Prussia sucked in a breath. A fight? This looked like a promising way to pass the time. Clearly Romano thought so too, because he barked out, "Yeah, albino potato, so shut the fuck up."

"What? What? Man, don't yell at me. I want to get out of here and go see more of Oz. This is the second adventure where we've gotten in trouble. I can't believe you two keep getting us into trouble!"

England sighed. "Okay, new rule. No weapons. I shouldn't have said you could bring it. Sorry, wasn't thinking. I thought it would fit right in."

"No weapons," Den agreed sadly. "I hope they don't – don't enchant it, or something, to make it different. I've had that thing since the eighth century."

"That would be very rude," the island nation said.

"More rude than throwing us in a damn jail?" Romano punched him. "This place is fucked up."

"I agree. It's not what I'd expected." England turned back to Den. "Check the bloody thing thoroughly when you get it back. If it's not right, we can stay longer and get things squared away. You might miss your first meeting, but at least this would be out of the way, and we'd have learned our lesson."

"Yeah. Okay."

…

The Scarecrow and Scraps came back with Bungle, but without the axe. "Dammit," Romano muttered, before Bungle leapt into his lap and settled down. Absently, he started stroking her smooth glassy body, waiting to see what would happen next.

"Don't worry. Don't worry a bit," the Scarecrow announced, waving both hands. "I got my hand reattached, and Scraps did a great job! She pinched the axe right out from under the guard's nose!" He beamed with pride.

"Well, but the guard was my friend Ojo," she explained, "so I did tell him I was taking it. But I promised he wouldn't get in trouble."

The straw man nodded. "True, true."

"Well, where's the axe?" Den demanded. This was so frustrating!

"Ah! Don't worry, tall man. Don't worry. Someone with a vested interest in axes is bringing it here."

"What do you mean?"

But Prussia had figured it out. "The awesome Tin Woodsman is bringing your axe, I bet."

"Correct! He wanted to examine it; it's quite ornate." The straw man skipped over to the albino and patted his white hair. "Are you sure you don't have straw in there? Because your thoughts are clearly of a very high caliber, nearly as high as mine!"

"Kesesese! Not straw, no matter what Romano may say." He gave the brunet a big smile; Romano snorted. "Still, it's logical."

"We will dodgical the logical and save the anthropological day!"

"Miss Scraps, you are very funny." Prussia shook her hand in his enthusiasm, being careful not to rip it off her arm.

Bungle coughed. "Funny is not as good as beautiful," she said, without even a hint of modesty.

"Not true!" he argued. "Funny is forever, but beauty fades."

Scraps smirked at the cat, sticking out her tongue.

"Not so," Bungle countered. "I'll always be beautiful; not being meat, I'll never age."

"Ha, but neither will I, Miss Cat!" Scraps poked her in the glass cheek. "I'll be funny _and_ beautiful, forever."

If the Scarecrow's eyes could shine, they would have. "Indeed you will." He patted Scraps on her patchwork head.

"Me too!" Prussia tried to twirl around in the room, but it was too crowded; then everyone got distracted by the ringing of the doorbell.

"It's him!" the Scarecrow yelled.

"My axe!" Den pelted after him.

Romano sagged back into the couch cushions. "This is exhausting, ba—England," he moaned. "I just want to go home."

But then the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion both entered the small library. "Oh, dear," Bungle mewed, before leaping off Romano and running out of the room, possibly scared of getting broken in the crush.

"What have you hooligans done to make our friend Dorothy so angry?" The Lion put up his fists, glancing around as if to challenge someone, but the Tin Man pushed him aside.

"Stop all that posturing. Here is the axe," he said, and Denmark plucked it from his metal hand in relief. "It's beautiful. Quite an antique, I'd say."

"You have no idea," Prussia laughed, as Den examined it minutely.

Romano's plaintive voice floated out to them, though he was no longer visible in the crowd. "Can we please go now?"

"Calm down, git. Let's introduce ourselves like gentlemen."

"Cheh, yes, all right."

When the introductions had been performed, the Scarecrow suggested they go out onto the lawn, since the little 'prison' was so crowded.

"But we're prisoners," England said with a delicate frown. "Won't we get in trouble?"

"Not if you're leaving Oz," the straw man pointed out. "Come outside and talk for a few minutes. Even if someone sends a runner to Ozma, by the time they got back with new orders, you could be gone. And she won't really punish us."

"Not _us,"_ the Tin Man agreed.

Everyone agreed this was a sensible approach, so the group headed out to the front lawn. No soldiers were visible, but Prussia knew that if he were the ruler, he'd have them hidden, or camouflaged. Who knew what type of magic might be used to conceal soldiers?

This thought obsessed him. Magic camouflage! West's army could really use some info like that. Maybe he'd ask Arthur about it when they got back.

Or maybe not. Maybe it'd just invite more trouble.

He saw Bungle creep silently out of the house and crossed to her side, since everyone else was in the middle of a conversation. "Thanks for your help today."

"It was nothing, really. A minor consideration. Things get a bit boring around here for us as well."

"I hadn't thought about that. Ever been out of Oz?"

She looked up at him disdainfully. "Where in the world could be worth going to, after living my life in Oz?"

Prussia could find no answer to that, and admitted it. "Hey, Gilbert!" he heard.

"I have to go. Thank you for your help," he repeated. "Live long and prosper! Kesesese!" He jumped up and ran to join his friends, pushing through the crowd. "Axe okay?" he hissed to Den, who nodded.

"Please stand back," England requested of the Oz residents; they did, and when the four nations had joined hands, he again spoke a short spell and they faded back to reality.

…

_I have them speaking German to each other for a couple of reasons. If we assume that all the magical worlds speak English, German works as a code language for them, and it's plausible that all four of them are fluent. England certainly is, with his historical ties to Germany; Denmark is right next to Germany geographically, so he'd have picked up on it (especially after beginning to date Prussia), and Romano could have picked it up during the Axis years and from his "hanging out with the potato bastard and Veneziano" times, too. Also, I used to be fluent, so it's easier for me to use German than, say, Danish or Italian, for this._

_Do you prefer a really long chapter, or to have it broken into two? _

_Next: a planning session._


	6. Planning

**Planning.**

"I wanted to see the magical tomatoes," Romano whined, sitting at the conference table. This month's meeting, in Baltimore, had just adjourned for the first day's lunch; the friends had opted to stay in the room and make plans for their next journey. Prussia had volunteered to go get take-out (as long as someone else paid for it); while they waited for him, they argued.

"We _know,_" the other two snapped back. He'd been pestering them separately and together about those bloody tomatoes for three weeks now.

"Listen, we'll go back there someday and get Bungle to take us there, all right? But for now, let's go somewhere different." Denmark slapped his hand on the table.

"Don't make me put a spell on you to shut you up," England added with a smirk. "I know I promised not to, but honestly, you're driving me mental with this tomato business."

"Is there any other place likely to have magical tomatoes?" Romano turned sad eyes to his boyfriend…

…who snorted. "Not that I know of. Of course, I could be wrong, but there's no place that I can think of with such unusual flora as Oz."

"Where should we go? Come on, let's pick a place before Teutonic Knights gets back, or he'll try to pressure us into something."

"Pfft. Why not let him? We can keep this project going as long as you want. There's no limit." England leaned back in the chair, lacing his fingers together behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. "I'd like to get some actual adventures going, instead of just sitting around talking to people."

"I agree!" Den laughed. "It's cool to meet everyone, but I want to do magic stuff, see magic stuff that the place is famous for."

"Like the magical tomatoes."

_"Shut up!"_

Romano sighed again and rested his head on the table, addressing England. "Is there any particular place you'd care to go, bastard?"

"Nice of you to ask, but not really. I don't think I'd take you to a place I've not already visited, because we might get into even more trouble than before. I need to be confident in the lay of the land, so to speak."

"As long as the Viking bastard leaves the cutlery at home…"

"Shut up, Romano," Den told him wearily.

Thankfully, Prussia entered with the lunch to distract them from this. "Here."

"What took you so long?" Hands eagerly reached for food.

"America was there before me; he just kept ordering and ordering! Kesesese! Did we figure out where we're going next? I want to do my awesome research."

"Not yet." Romano sighed and dug into his pad Thai.

"Hogwarts." Prussia nodded decisively. "Got to go there sometime."

Den shrugged. "Might as well, since we can't decide on anything else."

"Will the awesome Harry be there?"

"How the bloody hell would I know? Maybe he'll be there visiting or something. He's done with school, you remember."

"Yeah, I remember." Prussia crunched up an egg roll. "So basically it'd be teachers, and some of the younger kids? Could work out, or you could just take us shopping in Diagon Alley."

"Bastard, the only reason I'd want to go there is to meet Harry and his friends! What else is the point?"

"The point, Romano, is to have an adventure! We could – we could see the Whomping Willow, or play in a Quidditch game, or –"

"Oooh!" Denmark sat right up straight. "I would love to play Quidditch!"

"Kesesese, sure, you would make an awesome Beater, because it's like swinging your axe around and whacking your enemies. Heh."

"So for stuff like that, it wouldn't matter who the blasted students were."

Den belched. "Could you notify Harry and his friends that we're coming, and would like to meet them?"

"I…could do that!" England's eyes twinkled. "That would work out quite well, assuming they're all free to come visit the school. We could have a pick-up Quidditch game, probably. I know the school has plenty of brooms."

"Uh," Romano started.

"Don't worry. You don't have to play if you don't want to. But I'd like to take you for a broom ride," the island nation smiled, making the brunet blush.

"Let's awesomely do that, then! Great thinking, Den. I'm going to have to watch out, or my title as Brains of the Group is going to pass to you."

Romano narrowed his eyes and stared. And stared some more. Then he, Denmark and England all began laughing. "Whatever you say, T. K. Whatever you say."

…

_Yep, Hogwarts next. I need a refresher course on Quidditch first._

_The idea of magical tomatoes came from TheDeadOne28._


	7. Hogwarts

_This takes place between the end of the main Harry Potter series and the little epilogue. None of the main characters have kids yet, or anything like that._

…

**Hogwarts.** (The Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling)

"Aw, yeah!" Prussia leaped into the air and spiked an imaginary volleyball as Arthur reached for his jacket. "Hey, hey, wait. Wait a second. Why are you wearing a jacket?"

"Moron. It's cold out." Romano kicked him.

"Oh, stop that. I mean, look, he's leading us to the door. What the – Arthur, what are you doing?"

But Denmark had figured this one out. "We're taking the train, aren't we? Leaving from platform nine and three-quarters?"

"You got it." England poked Prussia in the arm. "Can't believe you, the great Hogwarts expert, didn't think of that."

"Shut up, will you? I wasn't thinking. Put your jacket on and let's go!"

…

The Skirmish Brothers were mildly surprised to find Bulgaria and Estonia loafing around the deserted platform. "Hey, bastards. What's going on?"

England gestured to a bench and sat. "They're coming with us."

"What? Why?" Denmark hastily backpedaled. "Not that I mind, just – why you guys? Why Hogwarts?"

Bulgaria beamed. "You're going to play Quidditch, right? I – have a friend meeting us there."

The island nation and Estonia stifled grins as the other three tried to work it out; just as Prussia yelled "Viktor Krum!" the train pulled in, and they all boarded, laughing and stuffing themselves into one compartment.

"That's cool! I just – England is being so good to us," Den said, patting him on the head. "Thank you."

"Hey, you take us to bakeries, git, I'll take us to magical worlds."

Romano snorted. "No bakeries, dammit. Tell me about Quidditch."

"Kesesese! You didn't do any of your homework, did you?"

The brunet scowled at him. "Yes, you moron, I did, but there's so much to keep track of! How the fuck can I be expected to play if I can't remember any of it?"

"I didn't actually think you'd play, though. Thought you'd chicken out and chat up Hermione in the stands while we awesomely zoom around on broomsticks."

"I'm going to take him for a test flight," England explained. "So he can decide."

Romano turned to England, red-faced. "Uh, that reminds me, bastard. Y-you didn't tell the – the Hogwarts people anything about any boyfriend shit, did you?"

"Of course not, wanker. Why would I do that?"

"Kesesese! If they wondered why you're going to take him up on a romantic broomstick flight, it could be a problem."

"Gilbert, you arse. No. I just told them he'd been resisting our efforts to show him some magic, and that I'd need to give him a chance to see if he could deal with flying. Nothing romantic about it." But the island nation was a bit pink, too.

"I'm – I'm not actually sure yet if I'll play the game or not. But I'd like to try."

Den, nearest the nervous Italian, gave him a little hug, and he scowled again.

"Who's coming to see us?" Estonia wondered. "Besides Mr. Krum."

Bulgaria laughed and patted his friend on the arm with a gloved hand. "You don't have to call him Mister Krum. 'Viktor' will be fine."

"Viktor, then. Who else?"

"You know what? I bet Ron's dad will come, if he knows about it." Prussia nodded sagely.

"What? Why him?"

"You know he's crazy about Muggle stuff, right? Plugs and things, phones, escalators? Muggle stuff is rare in his world."

"Not so rare anymore," England pointed out. "The lines aren't so cleanly drawn."

Denmark agreed. "I always wondered how they could even function in the world with so little, uh, cross-contamination from Muggles? When they went to the big Quidditch World Cup or whatever, all the older wizards were dressed like total freaks, and I just can't see how they could get to that age and never once quite grasp what ordinary people wore."

Estonia nodded, too. "It makes me wonder what the Hogwarts students used to wear under their robes. Harry and all the students in the books wore regular clothes with the robe over it like a coat, but – if they were trendsetters, what was the trend before them?"

"Maybe that was more author bullshit. Like with the Emerald City." Romano shrugged.

"You've been to the Emerald City?" Estonia's voice rose to a squeak. "Was it wonderful?"

"Hah! We ended up in prison," Den laughed.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!" Prussia stood up in the compartment, angry. "Doesn't anybody want to know why Ron's dad will be so excited to meet us?"

"Whatever, bastard. Sit down, calm down, and tell us why."

The albino tried to maintain a pout as he sat, but couldn't. "Well. Like I said. He's crazy for Muggle stuff. Well, we, my friends, we are even _rarer_ than Muggles. Even Muggles don't really know about us, right? So, he wouldn't pass up this chance to meet four – uh, six nations."

"Maybe."

"About that," England said. "They all call me Arthur. All right? How do you want to be introduced?"

"Awesomely as Gilbert, you know that."

"Yes, I knew that. What about the rest of you gits?"

"Human names are fine with me," Estonia smiled, and the rest of them agreed, except Romano, who hated his stupid human name.

Before they could argue that point, the train pulled into Hogsmeade station, and the six nations tumbled down onto the platform, eager to get their visit started.

…

Viktor Krum did indeed meet them at the gates to the school, where he immediately greeted Bulgaria without touching him. But the Balkan nation reached out a gloved hand to shake his citizen's hand, and Viktor smiled in astonishment. Bulgaria introduced them all, and Viktor swept his arm towards the school to lead them forward.

Romano felt like an idiot, because he had no idea who this bastard was, or why the albino potato had been so excited about meeting him. But there were too many people around for him to discreetly ask England. He hoped he could bluff his way through the day.

"Who else is here?" Prussia asked loudly.

"We're having a nice meal first," Viktor told them in his deep voice, ignoring the question. "Please come into the great hall."

That room had the feel of an outdoor dining hall, because of its enchanted ceiling. A group of people swarmed up to them, laughing, and the bastard that was obviously Harry shook England's hand with excitement.

The blond introduced everyone, and Harry gestured to the table for the meal.

Voices began babbling, and Romano sat calmly waiting for the food and trying to pin everyone's name in his mind. Harry, no problem; nobody looked like him. The only girls here were Hermione, Ginny and Luna; each of them had a very distinctive appearance, so he knew he wouldn't get them mixed up. Everyone ate, animated, discussing the plans for the afternoon. He was content to eat and listen, instead of trying to sound knowledgeable about something he didn't understand.

But there were two redhead young men here. He knew one was Ron and one was his brother, but he couldn't really tell them apart. Bulgaria was busy speaking to one of them. "If I'd known you would be here, I would have asked if Romania could join us!"

"Ah, no problem; I just talked to him last week!"

The other redhead noticed Romano's little frown of concentration, and passed him a pitcher of juice. "My brother Charlie works in Romania," he offered.

Romano automatically took the pitcher and poured himself a drink. "So, that's Charlie, and you're Ron; okay. Thanks." Ron had the red shirt, Charlie the blue one.

Ron laughed. "Yeah, must be tough to meet a bunch of people all at once."

"I do my best." He sipped the juice. "Wow! What is this stuff? It's delicious!"

England and Harry both beamed at him. "Arthur told us you like tomatoes. This is a special juice blend with some magically-grown Hogwarts tomatoes and other vegetables from the area."

"Kesesese!"

But Romano had to fight a sappy smile. Dammit, that bastard really did love him, didn't he? Instead of the smile, he drank more juice and banged England's knee with his own, under the table.

"Git. Drink your juice."

"Why didn't you bring any girls with you?" Hermione asked, in what Romano considered a somewhat belligerent tone. Was she a feminist?

"None of them wanted to come," England lied. Hah. Romano could just imagine what the day would be like if they'd brought fucking Belarus with them.

"Oh, hurry up with all this chit-chat!" The albino potato had already finished eating and tried to push the bench back. "I want to go play Quidditch!"

Everyone hurriedly finished their food and jumped up to run to the Quidditch field.

…

Ron immediately led everyone to the pitch, where a bunch of brooms lay neatly arranged on the ground. But Harry drew England to the side, and England grabbed Romano's sleeve to bring him along.

When they'd gotten a little way away, Harry picked up a lone broom from the ground. "Right," he said. "This broom is suitable for two. Are you sure you'll be all right?" he asked Romano kindly.

"Yeah, yeah. This bastard won't let anything happen to me." He punched England's arm fondly, not knowing how else to show affection in front of all these strangers.

"Just remember to hold on tight!" Harry backed away while England held the broom at the right height.

"Have fun, Romano!" Prussia yelled out from the other end of the stadium.

"I – I think we will!" Yes, he was terrifically frightened, but he got on as England directed, holding him around the waist from behind.

"All you really need to do is hold on to me, and we'll be fine. Even if you think we're falling, don't worry; just keep holding me. Understood?"

"Understood, moron." He slipped his arms around the island nation's waist and held him tightly. "And – and thanks for the magic tomato juice." He laughed a little. "Will it help me fly better?"

"No idea," England muttered, and launched the broomstick.

Wah! Romano's stomach plummeted. "Dammit, this…"

"Just shut it and hold on!"

They gained altitude in a straight line; Romano couldn't see well, because England was in the way, so he tried to look off to the side. "This is making my eyes water."

"Oh, bugger. I should have thought of that. _Accio goggles!_" England yelled, and a pair of goggles eventually flew into his outstretched hand…his outstretched hand, which was not holding onto the broom!

"Dammit, bastard! Get a grip on the stupid broom!"

"Put these on," England retorted, tucking them into Romano's hands. When the brunet had a grip on the goggles, the island nation put both hands on the broom and circled a little, leisurely.

"How the fuck am I supposed to put them on? I need to hold you!"

He could _feel_ the bastard's stupid romantic smirk, but England slowed the broom down a little more, until they were basically flying along at a walking pace. He also lowered the broom so they were closer to the ground. "There. Okay? Now if you fall off, you'll hit your head on the grass and be done. Right?"

"Bastard." Romano struggled into the goggles. "How do I look?"

"Adorable as always, you bloody chicken. Now hold onto me again. I'm going to take us out over the lake."

"Whaaaaaa –" Romano's scream of panic dwindled as they got airborne again. "Over the l-l-lake? What if we fall off the fucking broom? We'll drown!"

"Don't be an idiot! Just remember to hold on!"

So Romano squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could, and held onto England as tightly as he could, and in a few more seconds it felt like they'd stopped. He opened his eyes very gingerly –

And shut them again as soon as he saw they were over the water. "Dammit, dammit," he muttered, unable to think of anything better to say.

"You all right? You can relax now. We can maintain this flying speed and altitude with no problem, unless you go leaping off the blasted broom."

"R-really?" He opened his eyes once more, and focused on the beautiful surrounding landscape rather than the no-doubt-ice-cold water waiting to receive them, and began to relax. The broom was indeed flying rather peacefully along, with a gentle breeze ruffling their hair.

But he didn't want to get too nonchalant about this, too soon! So he leaned forward and asked, "Who the hell is Viktor Krum, anyway?"

England laughed and explained. "Don't worry. Nobody really expects this to be some long-term group thing, and there's no bloody quiz at the end of the day, either."

So Romano gave him a little squeeze, and kissed him on the back of his neck. "Thanks, bastard. For all this. For the tomato juice, and the trips, and – well, just being good to me."

He felt England take his hands and hold them for a few seconds. "You know there's nothing else I'd rather do," the island nation confessed, as sweetly as he could with the air rushing past them.

_"Hey!_ Get your hands back on the fucking broom!" Romano's heart rate spiked again. "Dammit, are you trying to kill me?"

"Wanker. Trying to be nice. I keep telling you, you do _not_ need to worry! I can control the broom with my knees."

"Don't. Just – just don't. Just fly us around for a little, _with_ your hands on the stupid thing!"

He felt England sigh, but relaxed as he saw the pale hands grasp the broomstick again. "Satisfied?"

"Mostly."

"You're supposed to be paying attention to see if you want to fly solo for the Quidditch game."

"Oh! Shit, yes, I forgot all about it."

"Well? Shut it and pay attention!"

So for a few minutes, Romano tried to place himself mentally on a solo broom flight, soaring around. He had to admit it was nice. It was unusual, and dramatic, and he could really get into this!

If he wasn't afraid of falling off. He mentioned this to England.

"There's probably some spell they could do, to make sure you don't fall off."

"Okay. Let's fly for another minute or two and I'll think about it. What kind of position do you think I would end up playing? I don't want to keep getting whacked by those giant balls."

To his credit, the island nation refrained from sniggering. "Well. It's possible we won't use those. It might not be fair to four newb players like you gits."

"What do you mean? You've played it before?"

"Of course I have."

Then the mathematics sorted themselves out in the Italian's brain. "What four gits? Me, Den, the albino potato, Estonia and Bulgaria, that's five, you idiot."

"Bulgaria isn't a newb. Viktor Krum is the most famous Quidditch player there ever was!"

"Oh."

"Anyway, Gilbert was right; you can sit in the stands with Hermione and cheer us on. Luna too, I'm guessing. But if you do want to play, I bet Gilbert will suggest you play Seeker. That's actually a pretty easy job, but you have to be fast."

Romano had been wondering about broom control for a few minutes now. "Will you let me try to fly the broom myself? Out here somewhere, so neither of those dumb bastards will see me if I fall off the stupid thing?"

"Sure." England angled the broom down towards an empty field. "I won't let you take it up alone, but you can sit in front and fly it, and I'll ride behind you."

"No funny stuff," Romano cautioned, as they gently landed.

"No funny stuff." England scooted back and let Romano mount in front of him for his first-ever test flight.

…

On the pitch – or rather, above the pitch – Prussia flew loop-de-loops around everyone, screaming like a banshee and laughing so loudly it drowned the others out. Den shrugged and did a few laps around the field. This was fun! He wondered whether he could start getting his citizens interested in magic, so they could do some of these things when he was at home. He tried a Prussia-style loop-de-loop and almost fell off the broom, though, so he settled down to practice more effectively.

"You're not bad," Charlie Weasley told him, flying alongside him.

"It's easy when I'm just coasting along. I'm not sure how well I'll do when there are balls and other players and shit like that flying around."

Charlie laughed. "Don't worry about it, mate. This is just a friendly game, so unless you fall off your broom, you'll have fun."

"I'll try to stay on." Damn right! If Prussia or Romano saw him fall off a broom, they would never shut up about it.

…

"Right," England told Harry, handing the broom back. "We'll both play."

Harry turned to the flying players and amplified his voice by magic. "Oi! Come down and choose teams!"

Romano froze, hissing to England, "What? Can't I be on your team?"

"Yes, panicky thing, Harry and I are captains, so I'll choose you, even though Gilbert is probably a more sensible choice."

"I hate you."

England smirked. "Fine. Play on Harry's team."

"Bastard…"

"All right, all right. Shut it and stand with everyone else."

Prussia landed and threw his arms around Romano. "Did you love it? Isn't it awesome? Kesesese!"

"Yes, idiot, it's awesome. Now – now calm down while they choose teams."

Teams were sorted. Harry had chosen Ron, Prussia, Denmark (to his amazement), and Charlie; England had therefore ended up with Romano, Viktor, Ginny and Bulgaria. Romano was still worried, but he hoped that having four other real players (as opposed to those 'newbs' Prussia and Den) would offset any problems he might cause. Estonia allowed Hermione and Luna to lead him to the stands to watch and possibly cheer.

"Since we're playing short-handed," Harry suggested, "let's leave out the Snitch. We'll just score goals by shooting the Quaffle through the hoops. That way we don't need a Seeker, and we can use two Chasers instead of three. First team to score five goals wins. All right? For a warm-up, at least. If it's over too quickly we can have another go."

Everyone admitted that this sounded good. "Five minutes to assign roles?" England asked Harry, who agreed.

The blond drew his team into a huddle. "Let's plan our positions based on the other team. Den will be a Beater, no question," he laughed. "Will Ron play Keeper?" he asked Ginny.

"Probably. I heard him worrying, because we have Viktor and me on the team. Sorry," she apologized to the others, "but he knows my style."

"It's all right," Bulgaria told her, and Viktor agreed. Romano was a bit too nervous to speak at all.

"Who wants to be our Keeper? You'll have to watch out for Gilbert. I'm positive he'll play Chaser."

"I'll play Keeper, then," Bulgaria grinned. "I can take care of him."

"Good. I think Viktor and I should play Beater, and Romano and Ginny Chasers, since they're lighter and possibly faster."

"Chaser, Chaser," Romano muttered, trying to remember what they had to do.

"Just like football," Bulgaria said, patting him on the shoulder. "Get the ball, score a goal."

"That's _it?_"

"Pfft. As long as Viktor and Arthur keep the Bludgers away from you, yeah!"

"We can do it." Those two nodded grimly. "Don't want anyone getting hurt," England added, carefully not looking at Romano.

"We're all okay with this?" the Italian asked, appealing to Ginny. He didn't want her to feel put upon, or anything.

She slapped him on the back. "Let's kick their bloody arses!"

…

In Harry's team huddle, Prussia tried not to bounce up and down with exuberance. _Harry Potter_ had chosen him, Prussia, to be on his Quidditch team! "Kesesese!" he yelled out, before Den grabbed his arm and yanked on it.

"Shut up. Let Harry figure out who's playing what."

"Yeah, I got it," Harry told them. "Ron, I'm relying on you to play Keeper. One thing we know is that none of them are playing positions they're comfortable with. We don't need Seekers, so both Viktor and Ginny are going to have to do something unfamiliar."

"But Arthur's good at all the positions," Ron pointed out. "Gotta watch out for him."

"I remember." Harry shared a smile with his best friend. "Okay. So if you'll take Keeper, that'll give me some reassurance. Remember Charlie and I have to play unfamiliar positions too!" He turned to the two nations. "What do you think you'd be best at? Attacking or defending?"

"Attack, attack, attack!" Prussia yelled, jumping up and down.

Everyone laughed at him, except Den, who rolled his eyes. "Yeah. I'll take defense. Put a bat in my hand, it's as good as an axe, right?"

"Okay. I'll Chase, if Charlie will Beat."

"Deal," Charlie told him, shaking his hand.

"You all know the rules?"

"Memorized 'em last week," Den grinned, stretching.

"Cool. The bats are over here. Are you both happy with your brooms?"

"This broom is _awesome._ Wonder if I could buy it and take it home?"

"Wouldn't work," Ron pointed out. "Hogwarts brooms only work at Hogwarts."

_"Scheisse._ Well, come on! Let's play!"

…

_Apparently Rowling once said that Viktor found love after returning to Bulgaria. So I had to put a little romantic EstiBul in there. I'm going to hope Viktor fell in love with an Estonian tourist._

_I hadn't realized that almost all the characters I chose for this chapter had been Seekers! So this put them all at a little disadvantage._

_I'd mentioned that this story might get abandoned, but it probably won't. I hadn't had any ideas about this despite frantically thinking about it, and then one little Wikipedia phrase about Hogwarts unlocked the whole chapter plot for me. Stay tuned – I'll reveal it at the conclusion of the Hogwarts chapters._


	8. Hogwarts II

**Hogwarts II.**

"Harry, have you any kind of spell that might help Romano stay on his broom? Or do you think that would be cheating?" England asked this in a low tone so his friend wouldn't be embarrassed in front of everyone else.

"I don't think it's a problem. We know you're not used to it. What about your other friends?" They all glanced back to where Prussia sat on a broom zooming around at waist-height, while Den swished a bat around to get a feel for it, narrowly missing Ron, who yelped.

"Eh. They'll probably be all right."

"Okay. Hermione probably knows something. Come on." Harry gestured to the brunet and they walked into the stands; England busied himself choosing a broom from the few that remained.

Once they'd explained the problem, she nodded. "Give me a minute…yes, all right, I know what I can do." She chanted a spell under her breath, touching Romano's broom with one hand and his arm with the other. He felt a slight tingle up his spine, but that could have been purely psychosomatic. After all, England had worked magic on him before, and he'd never felt that.

When she let go he asked, "Is that it?"

Hermione beamed. "That's it! Have fun playing!" She turned back to Luna and Estonia, who gave Romano a thumbs-up, and then Harry led him back to the pitch.

"What was that all about?" Prussia asked him, zipping past and grinning.

"Nothing. Shut up." Romano straddled the broomstick and tentatively rose into the air a few feet. Yes! He could do it. He wondered whether Hermione might have given him extra flying powers. Would that be cheating?

Fuck it. Even if it was, he wasn't going to ask her to take them away! He snorted. Fair play, hah. He wanted to thrash the albino potato's team, even if they did have to cheat.

Soon everyone was ready and the game began.

…

At first, Denmark felt a little worried. He had to fly around, stop balls from hitting Harry and Prussia, and not get hit himself! And not run into anyone! He was so concerned about this that he simply flew around panicking for a while, randomly lunging towards Bludgers here and there just to bat them out of the way, until he heard a yell from Prussia. "Den! Stop fucking around!"

How the hell did anyone ever concentrate on this damn game? He turned to see the albino trying to outfly one of the big brutal balls, ignoring the gameplay going on around them. Den dove for it and batted it away. "Got it," he yelled, but it circled around and headed towards Harry, so he aimed for that area. Who would have thought flying around on a broom required all this energy? He was exhausted already.

Harry tried to score, but Bulgaria made a save. "Bloody hell," he heard Ron mutter, behind him at the goal.

England swooped by and hit a Bludger right at him. "Damn!" Den hit it back at him as if they were in a tennis match, but the island nation was long gone.

Prussia yelled for his help again. Shit. Denmark was playing like a total ass. Even Romano was doing better than he was. In fact, while Den was flying after the Bludger to save Prussia again, Romano actually scored!

A cheer went up from England's team and from the three in the stands. Well, of course Estonia was going to cheer Bulgaria's team. But Ron became indignant, yelling to Hermione, "Whose side are you on, anyway?" He put the Quaffle back into play.

"It's not a matter of sides, Ron," Harry laughed, flying past. "It was a good goal!"

Romano preened a bit, though Den noticed he was careful not to let go of the broomstick. Everyone else was so distracted by this that Prussia managed to sneak up and score against the shouting, isolated Bulgaria. "Awesome! I scored! Hey, _Romano!_ I scored too!"

Bulgaria snorted and put the Quaffle back in play. Now Den felt really stupid – although he knew his position was not a scoring one, both his friends had made goals very quickly. "We forgot to make a bet!" he yelled, swinging his bat at a Bludger.

"No bloody bets!" England flew past again, laughing almost as maniacally as Prussia, and hit the ball away.

Shit. Romano was about to score another goal! Denmark was determined to stop him. Ignoring all the balls and other players, he flew downward and then popped right up in front of the Italian, intending to shock him into missing.

And…boy, did it work. Romano screamed "Chigi!" and recoiled, right into the path of a Bludger that Viktor had been unable to stop. The ball hit Romano in the shoulder and he lost control of the broom, tumbling down towards the grass, still screaming incoherently in Italian.

"Shit!" Den yelled, going into a nosedive to try to catch him before he hit the ground.

Suddenly Romano stopped both screaming and falling, but Denmark couldn't stop, and his powerful dive drove him face-first into the dirt, where he fell on his broom and smashed it. "Ow. Ow!" What the hell? Ouch. He rolled over heavily in the grass and lay still. Did he have splinters up his fucking _nose? _He'd thought Romano had recovered and gotten control of his broom again, but no. The brunet swung gently in the breeze, apparently unconscious, about ten feet in the air, upside-down. What had happened? Hit by another ball?

Gameplay had stopped for all this. Den narrowed his eyes against the sun, sort of dazed. At least he hadn't broken anything. Had he? He raised a hand and wiped his nose, which was bleeding a little. Whatever. He blotted it with his shirt, blinking a few times, then kept his eyes open and listened to the talk flow around him, vaguely hoping Romano wouldn't fall and land on top of him.

Hermione ran anxiously out onto the field, trailed by Luna and Estonia. "Are you all right?" she asked Den. Then, pointing to Romano, "Is _he_ all right?"

"I'll take care of Mathias." Luna bent down and smoothed the hair off Den's face, taking a handkerchief from her handbag and wiping up the blood. He smiled at her, and she smiled back. England touched down nearby, followed by most of the other players.

"He-e-e-lp!" they heard, and the whole group looked up. Prussia had fallen off his broom and hung onto it with both hands, dangling beneath it, his legs kicking wildly as the broom shot randomly around the arena. Both Bludgers chased him. "Stop this crazy thing! _Iggy!"_

Bulgaria laughed and waved cheekily at him. "Well?" he demanded of England. "Going to save him?"

"Pfft. Not if he keeps calling me Iggy. Let him fly around for a while, keep him out of my hair, unless one of you gits wants to save him. I need to check on Romano."

"I'll go get him," Bulgaria sighed. "Come on, Viktor, give me a hand." The two of them launched themselves at the albino.

"Are you all right, Den?" Denmark nodded without saying anything, so England got airborne near the unconscious Romano, several feet above everyone else. He lifted his friend's eyelid with his thumb. "Seems like he's knocked out. Did the ball hit him in the head?"

"No," Charlie told him. "In the shoulder. Viktor tried to stop it but wasn't fast enough."

"Why is he floating up there?" Ron wondered. "I thought he was going to crash."

Hermione stood wringing her hands. "This is something to do with the spell, isn't it?" Harry asked her.

She nodded. Before she could explain, Charlie asked, "What spell?"

Harry explained about Romano's fear of falling off the broom. "Hermione said she put a spell on him to keep him on the broom."

"It worked, didn't it?" Luna looked dreamily up at Romano, who was still mounted on the broom as if flying, except that he was hanging upside down. "He didn't fall off."

Prussia's voice floated back to them across the width of the pitch. _"Help me!"_ Den shifted his eyes to look; the albino still hung on, legs now flopping limply as he zoomed around; Viktor and Bulgaria flew frantically after him, but didn't seem to be catching up. Eh, he'd be all right, as long as his arms didn't give out. Maybe there was something wrong with that broom. Could it be cursed?

But Estonia spoke, drawing his attention back to the matter at hand. "So, there was some kind of cushioning spell? That's pretty smart." He seemed impressed.

"W-well," Hermione began, nervously, "that – that was later. When I saw him falling, I used an extra-strength cushioning spell on him. It was just supposed to slow his descent so he landed on the grass, not keep him in the air!"

England shrugged and pushed Romano downward; Harry reached up to grab the broomstick, but he couldn't quite make it. The blond pushed harder; when he let go, Romano popped up like a cork to float where he'd been. "Why is this so strong? Why did you use extra-strength spells on him?" England wondered.

"You said he was resistant to magic!" Hermione wailed.

"You mean like Hagrid?" Ron laughed a little, possibly comparing the slight Romano to the gigantic Hagrid.

"Yes! I had to use all the strongest spells I could think of!"

But England frowned. "I never said that. He's never been resistant to it before. What makes you think I said that?"

Harry cleared his throat. "That's what you said in your letter. You wanted to take him on the broomstick ride because he was resistant to magic."

"Oh, bloody hell! I meant he didn't like the idea of magic. He was resisting us, when we wanted to do things, and arguing with us about it all the time. Bugger." He pushed down on Romano again, who popped back up.

"Doesn't really matter why. What matters is how long he'll stay like this." Ron jumped up and grabbed the broom, but it slipped; once again the Italian rose back to his stasis point. "Haha! This is fun." He jumped and bounced Romano up and down a few times.

England glared at him. "Knock it off. If he finds out –"

"Haha," Den managed to laugh weakly. "Explosion!" Luna stopped blotting his face and rocked back on her heels, smiling up at the floating half-nation.

"Uh. Yeah." Ron stopped. "Well? When will he come down?"

Everyone turned to Hermione, who shrugged. "I don't know! If he had been truly resistant to magical effects it might have worn off in five minutes. But since he's not –"

"Can we at least wake him up?" Harry wondered. "I hope he's not concussed."

England lifted his eyelid again. "Pupils are fine. Hey, Romano," he said, slapping his friend's cheek gently.

"Mm, tomatoes," the brunet moaned, hugging his broom and rolling over as if in a bed. This made everyone burst out laughing and dispelled the tension.

"I guess we ought to stop playing," Harry decided.

"Yes. I – I don't think I could focus, knowing he was like this," England said, with a frown.

"And we still need to save Prussia!" When Estonia said that, Den looked up and saw him desperately clinging to a goalpost with his legs, while gripping the raging broom with his hands. Bulgaria and Viktor warily approached him, one from each side, each with an outstretched arm ready to grab him. The Bludger had dropped to the grass and lay inert, perhaps sensing that the game was over.

England laughed a little. "Look at that git."

"What are we going to do, if you don't play?" Hermione looked around. "Would you like to tour the school or something?"

"Hah, if we could find the Room of Requirement, maybe there would be a book of spells for how to fix this!" Ron leaped up and tried to grab the end of Romano's broomstick, but it slipped out of his grasp once more.

"Tie a rope to him," Luna suggested. "Then we can tour the school and tug him along with us like a balloon."

The nations all burst out laughing at the idea of a Romano balloon, except for England, who was still quite concerned and trying to wake his friend up. "Hey, you might not want to wake him up," Den pointed out. "If he wakes up and finds himself being treated like a balloon –"

"Bugger. Well, that is a good point." The blond looked down at them all. "I don't mind touring the school. You wankers all right with that?"

"Fine with me," Denmark answered. He didn't really care what they did at this point. He was worried about Romano, and Prussia too, and wanted to keep an eye on his friends. He finally struggled into a sitting position and looked around sadly at the bits of broken broom and the bat.

"Suits me," Harry added. "It'd give us all a chance to calm down a little."

"That's certainly fine with me. I had hoped we'd get a little tour," Estonia smiled, removing his glasses to polish them.

"All right. Let's get all the gear packed up." Harry turned to find that Ginny had been taking care of this all along. "You what?"

"Well, it wasn't going to do any good if I just stood around, was it? At least this is done." She shut and locked the trunk containing the Quidditch balls. "Bring your brooms, everyone. Don't worry about the broken one," she told Denmark. "I'll come back and take care of it later."

"Thanks."

Viktor and Bulgaria finally managed to get the shaking Prussia and his rogue broom back down to earth safely. He immediately collapsed in the grass. "Forget that! Wow, it was exciting at first, but – no way, Arthur. Never again. That damn broom –"

"You said it was awesome," Harry pointed out with a grin.

"That broom is a – a _traitor!"_

No one seemed to sympathize with him; in fact, there was scattered laughter at this comment. "It was your idea to come here, you know," England reminded him. Prussia didn't answer, but turned his back on the broom and rubbed his biceps showily.

Denmark stood up and reached a hand to him, and they leaned unsteadily together as they walked. "What happened to you? And Romano?"

Den let them drift to the rear of the group while he explained about it. England mounted the broom behind Romano so he could keep an eye on him, and they all headed back into the school. Ginny and Charlie took the gear to put away, while the rest congregated in the great hall again.

…

As they walked along, Prussia could see that Arthur was seriously distressed by all this. "Hey," he wondered aloud, "what happens when the spells wear off? Will you two just fall on the floor?"

"Shit," Den laughed, "that's going to lead to trouble."

"I can probably react in time." England bit his lip. "Go on, Luna or someone, give us a tour."

So Luna led them all on a very quirky yet informative tour of the Hogwarts school and grounds. Prussia was thrilled when Nearly Headless Nick came out to see them, and tried to shake his hand. "At least you can't rip _Nick's_ hand off," Den muttered with a grin.

But Prussia ignored this. "Awesome! Wait until I tell America I met a real ghost! Kesesese!"

"Americans are scared of ghosts," Nick sniffed disdainfully, making all the nations laugh. He drifted along with them for a while, showing great interest in trying to poke the sleeping Romano, but then got distracted by something else.

"Why is the school so empty?" Denmark then wondered. "Is it vacation time or something?"

"Yes. Teachers are around somewhere, but they're probably keeping out of our way." Ron poked his head around the corner. "There are some kids here, too, but they all act intimidated around us. We rarely get to talk to them."

Luna smiled sweetly. "Because you're heroes."

All of the Hogwarts people blushed, even Viktor. "Luna, please…" Harry began.

Prussia grinned and would have pinched his cheek if they'd been better friends. "You know what always struck me as stupid?" he told them, just to get the embarrassing moment over with. "Voldemort probably could have gotten a shit-ton more adherents if he'd gone to America. There are so many people there, and they love jumping on bandwagons like that. All those religious cults and things? He shouldn't have tried to confine himself to Europe."

"Wouldn't have worked." Den poked him. "Doesn't go with the heroic image."

All the nations paused for a moment to imagine America as a follower of Voldemort; they heard a snort from the airborne island nation. Prussia shrugged. "Hah. Yeah, you're right. Stupid idea. Forget I said anything."

"I'm glad that business is all over." Ginny took Harry's hand and they kept walking.

"We all are." Harry seemed as if he wanted to say more, but the spell broke and both England and Romano fell on top of him. "Ow!"

"Dammit! What the fuck's going on? You – huh? Why are we inside? What the hell are you doing?" His voice changed to accusatory anger as he stared up at England, who had his hands on either side of Romano and was trying to lever himself up. The Italian ignored Harry, who crawled out from under him, rubbing his hip. "Bastard, if you've been doing magic on me again –"

"It's my fault!" Hermione wailed, wringing her hands together theatrically. "Please don't yell at Arthur! He's been so concerned about you!"

Romano's blush started deep and slow, and soon his whole face was red. Ron helped him off the floor and handed the broomstick to Ginny. The brunet cleared his throat. "Wh-what the f-what happened?" He avoided looking at Arthur, now, Prussia noticed. Heh.

The island nation stood up and dusted his palms together while Hermione explained. "I'm so, so sorry!" she repeated, tears in her eyes.

Romano took her hands and smiled at her. "Please don't worry," he told her. "Accidents do happen, and this was a misunderstanding. No real harm has been done."

"Except I'm all bruised, from where you two fell on me," Harry joked, and everyone smiled.

"Please don't worry?" Romano squeezed Hermione's hands one more time and let go.

"Okay." She wiped her eyes with the back of a hand.

"So what the h—what are we doing inside?" He stared around the place as England rested the broom against the wall.

"Kesesese! Luna's giving us an awesome tour while we waited for you to wake up and get off the broom."

Romano rubbed his head. "Yeah, okay, fine. Please continue the tour. Sorry I fell on you, ba-Harry."

"No problem. Come on, Luna, let's show them something else. Moaning Myrtle's bathroom?"

"Urgh, no," Ron grunted. "I can't deal with her today. Want to take the hidden passage to Hogsmeade? We could get a snack without disturbing the house-elves."

"Why are you always thinking of food?" Hermione whacked him on the side of the head.

He grinned at her. "Hey, at least I was being nice about the house-elves!"

"Idiot," she muttered affectionately, taking his hand.

"Could you deal with a trip through an underground passage?" England asked Romano, still seeming worried.

"Pfft. Catacombs, remember? Yes. Just – uh, just walk with me?" He blushed, and Prussia _did _pinch his cheek. "Stop that, you idiot."

"Then let's go to Hogsmeade!" Prussia hugged him excitedly. "Where do we go?"

"Follow me, please." Luna took his hand and led them to the passage's entrance.

…

At the end of the day everyone was in much better spirits. Neither Harry nor Den felt any more pain, and both Romano and Prussia had recovered from their earlier frights. The entire group headed back to the train station to see the travelers safely on their way. "Thank you all," Den said, shaking everyone's hand in turn. "We had a great day, didn't we?"

"_You_ did!" Romano punched him on the arm; everyone laughed.

"We were happy to meet you all." Viktor spoke for the group. "And of course I'm always happy to see you." He shook Bulgaria's hand and then Estonia's with a little smile.

The nations boarded the train with waves and laughter. "Take care of yourselves!" Romano yelled back.

"We will," Luna called to him. "We all will!"

Waving goodbye out the window, they parted from their new Hogwarts friends, exhausted but happy.

"Whew," Prussia groaned, flopping into a seat. "What a day! Seriously, that Quidditch is a bitch. Don't know how they do it." He rubbed his biceps again.

"You're not kidding." Den complained about muscle groups he hadn't even known he owned!

"Don't worry. I'll give you a good massage when we get home." Prussia waggled the white eyebrows.

"Shut up, stupid." Romano kicked him.

"Ow. There's something I forgot to ask about, though, Arthur. Remember when we went to the Shire? We saw the personification of the Shire."

Estonia interrupted to ask about the Shire; this discussion took quite a while and caused much embarrassment.

"Anyway," Prussia continued, "we didn't get to meet the awesome personification of Oz, did we? Or was he or she one of the people we saw but didn't meet?"

England thought. "I think we must have missed him, or her. I've never met that one."

"Well, my real question is why we didn't meet the personification of Hogwarts today. Or maybe not Hogwarts, but of the magical world." Prussia, shaking his head, frowned a little. "I thought for sure we would, since it was a calm day and we weren't in any trouble."

Everyone stared at him; Romano started laughing and hugged England. "Thanks for a pretty good day, bastard."

Den leaned across the gap between the seats and shook England's hand. "Yes. It was an awesome day, even if I will be suffering for a day or two."

Bulgaria and Estonia both laughed and each took the island nation's hands for a few seconds, adding their thanks.

The affronted albino sat shifting his glance from one to the next. "What are you all talking about? Why are you ignoring my question?"

England gestured to Romano to explain. "Teutonic bastard, you're an idiot."

"What? Why?"

"Hogwarts is in the UK." Den poked him in the ribs.

"Yeah? So?"

"England is the personification of this magical world! Aren't you?" Estonia asked earnestly.

England grinned at the amazement dawning on Prussia's face. "Yes, I am. It coexists with our world, you see, so it doesn't really have its own separate geographical place."

Prussia leaped up and hugged him, falling onto his lap as the train lurched onwards. "That's so awesome! Arthur, Arthur, I love you!"

"Yes, git, I love you too. Now get off me; go sit on Denmark's lap or something."

He did so, laughing and hugging the Viking. "Wow. That's the coolest thing ever."

"I _know_." Romano kicked him once more, and the train sped on, taking them home.

…

_The key to this chapter for me was reading that Hagrid, as part giant, is resistant to magic. When you think about how Romano's been resisting everything they wanted to do, that mixup makes sense, and it gave me some ideas about the gameplay. _

_Discworld next. Whew, where do I begin?! Is there anyone you'd like to see? Moist will definitely be in it, and Ridcully._


	9. Ankh-Morpork

_I am a Total Discworld Geek. If I could live in any fictional place, it would be Ankh-Morpork. It is not as well-known as the preceding worlds, mostly because it's been made into British TV movies and not worldwide Hollywood blockbusters. If you'd like to learn more, start by reading (or watching) "Going Postal." It's one of the more recent books (published 2004, it's book 29 out of 37 published to date; the movie stars Richard Coyle and was made in 2010), but it is a good standalone and will give you a feel for the city of A-M and its pre-Steam Age development levels. _

_There is a Discworld/Hetalia crossover (a longish one-shot) featuring Switzerland, on my dA account._

…

**Ankh-Morpork.** (The Discworld novels, Sir Terry Pratchett)

"Looking good, Gilbert." England gestured to his friend's very old-fashioned and dirty outfit. "Not a speck of neon visible."

"Kesesese! My underwear's neon pink but I don't think anybody will see it."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, you girly albino bastard…"

"Why? What kind of underwear do _you_ have on?" Denmark grabbed Romano and tried to pull his pants down.

"Chigi! Will you lunatics drop this? I thought you were happy because you saw it at the water park!" He struggled until England yanked him out of Den's grasp. "Ow."

"Hah, you wear the same underwear all the time?" Prussia grinned at him. "Come on, forget all this, and let's get going. I want to see a golem."

"Well, all right." They trooped down the stairs to the Sanctum. "What the fuck's a golem, anyway? I read some of these books but I don't remember that being in any of them."

Denmark had been doing his homework, so he explained that they were clay statues brought to life by holy words written down and placed into their hollow heads.

"That doesn't make any sense! How do their joints bend?"

"_That's_ what doesn't make sense?" England laughed, lighting the candle. "I thought you'd scoff about the 'holy words in the head' part."

"Whatever, bastard. I know holy words can do a lot. But I want to see a golem too, now."

The friends took up their positions and transitioned to Sator Square.

…

No one paid any attention to their arrival at all. "Are we invisible again?" Prussia hissed to England, as they were jostled this way and that by passersby.

"No. It's just that nobody gives a damn, around here."

"You're joking! Well, let's go see someone."

"Who should we go see? You choose." England gestured around with an expansive wave of his arm.

But someone had already scurried to the group. "Excuse me, sirs! Excuse me! New to the city? Hungry? Try a pie! Genuine finest pork product!"

England laughed at Dibbler's expression; he hadn't been here for a while, but old Dibbler was still the same, just a little more grey. "No thanks," he said, even though Prussia was eying the pies. "Maybe later."

"You're certain? Look how good they are!" Dibbler nodded enthusiastically.

"We're certain."

"Are we?" Prussia hissed. Romano poked him.

"Come on, gits, let's move. Thanks, Mr. Dibbler," the island nation finished, pulling his friends to stand near a building.

"Why can't we get a pie, Arthur? They smell really good!"

"Cheh. Did you do any homework, bastard? Even I know that if you eat one of Dibbler's pies, you'll regret it."

"If you live long enough," Den added with a laugh.

Prussia stroked his chin, thinking. "Nope. Don't remember anything about that."

"Well, it doesn't matter, git. Just take your cues from me, all right? And no mucking about with things you don't recognize! The Disc, and Ankh-Morpork, are naturally magic. If you touch something you could cause a strange reaction."

"Turning your underwear blue," Romano muttered with a smirk.

"Ah. Well." Den had ignored that. "I think we should meet the personification right away, so we don't forget."

"Ooh! Great idea, great idea. Can we do that, Arthur?"

"You want to meet the personification of Ankh-Morpork? Or of the whole Disc?"

"Could we do both?" Prussia nodded eagerly. "It would make up for all the other ones we missed."

"We could try. Come on. We need to get to the Brass Bridge." England led the others away, through the crowds and dirt, the noise and smells.

"How do people stand this?" Romano wondered. "It's like a circus!" He grabbed England's arm so he wouldn't get lost in the crowd.

"It can't be any worse than things were in our past. Can it? Hell, Berlin's worse than this now, just in a different way." Prussia nodded sagely. "More tech and stuff, more pollution and noise. And a lot more people."

Romano took a moment to think about this, instead of just disagreeing. "You're right," he said in wonder. "I hadn't considered it that way."

"Must just be because it's unfamiliar to us." Denmark towered over most of the residents, until they rounded a corner and almost bumped into a troll in a clockwork helmet. "Oops," the Viking said quietly, looking up – and up –

"Dat's all right," the troll said with a diamond grin. "People always bumpin' into me."

"Are you _Detritus?_" Prussia asked in awe.

"Dat's Sergeant Detritus, to you," the troll nodded. "But yeah, dat is who I am."

"Sergeant Detritus," the albino hurriedly corrected himself, extending a hand to shake. "Wow."

Very delicately, the troll took the white hand between thumb and forefinger and shook it gently. "'M on my way to a crime scene so I gotta go." He lumbered off.

"Thanks! Bye!" Prussia danced in place. "Can we follow him? I wanna see the rest of the watchmen."

Denmark laughed at him, but then took a moment to think. "Wonder what crime it was? I hope it's nothing too bad."

"Argh, bastards, I hope they don't try to pin it on us! Let's go to the Brass Bridge like we were going to do. I don't want to get in trouble for meddling."

"Good point." England took Romano's arm again and led them off.

They reached the bridge without incident and stood staring at the famous hippos and the cart and foot traffic for a moment. "Well?" Den asked. "Where's the personification?"

England grinned and led them to a short, grubby watchman leaning against the railing, smoking. "Mornin', gents," Nobby greeted them.

"How have you been?"

"Eh, you know how it is. Ups and downs, just like everybody else."

The blond introduced his friends. Only Prussia was brave enough to shake Nobby's hand; England figured he was probably safe, since he was an ex-nation anyway. Still. He had hand sanitizer in the rucksack, having assumed someone, somewhere, would get dirty. He'd make Gilbert use it when they moved on.

"And this is the Ankh!" Den leaned over the railing, watching the sluggish river, an almost solid mud color. "Wow."

"Easy to tell you blokes are tourists, even if I didn't recognize Arthur. Here for a long time?"

"Just today," England told him. "Mister Vimes keeping the city under control?" He grinned.

"Yeah. 'S not easy, having a teenaged kid trying to follow you around all the time. But I guess Young Sam's busy learnin' to be a copper now. Or trying to." Nobby snorted. "He gets up a lot of people's noses, that one. Not as bright as his dad, but thinks he is. Tryin' to reform the system. Vimesy keeps tryin' to shut him up, but he won't."

"I thought he was going to study shit?" Denmark laughed. "But if he's a teenager now, then, yeah, that's a long time ago."

"Long time for all of us." Nobby's eyes unfocused and he began patting his various pockets. "Hold on. Got somethin' here – " Eventually he pulled out something that looked like a flat metal box, about the size of a cell phone. They could hear a tinny knocking sound coming from it.

"What's that?" Prussia asked.

"New kind of thing for talkin' to people." The grubby Watchman pried the lid off the box to display a tiny imp, breathless and irritable, who had apparently been banging on the underside of the lid with an even tinier rock.

"Oi," the imp scowled. "Been banging for two minutes!"

"What is it?" Romano leaned forward and peered at the imp, who recoiled.

"I am an Advanced Communications Imp!"

"What does that mean?"

"Well," Nobby told him, leaning back against the bridge railing, "some bugger at the University discovered that imps can talk to each other even when they're far apart."

"Or suffocating in metal boxes!" the imp squeaked angrily.

"So now all us Watchmen have 'em. We can talk to each other faster. Y'open the box, tell the imp what you want to say, and then he tells his mate, who opens their box and tells your friend whatever you want to say!"

"Unless they're trapped in a box, mister!"

"Yeah, all right, all right, Ted. What's going on?"

"All Officers, Treacle Mine Road!"

"Really? Haven't had one o'them in a while." Nobby pushed himself up. "Got to go, gents. Have a nice trip! And – say hi to the personificatatation of the Disc for me, will you?" He gave England a wink and ran.

"Nobby, huh?" Den said. "I would have thought Vimes was the personification."

England nodded and gestured along the street; they began walking again. "You'd be forgiven for thinking that. But Vimes is honest and loyal, if a bit of a bastard, and if you think about Ankh-Morpork, that doesn't really go with the image. Nobby is exactly like the city – dirty, greedy, smarmy…impressionable…"

"So, where are we going now, bastard?" The crowds were thinner here.

England gestured towards the Tower of Art. "Unseen University. If you want to meet the personification of the Disc, we'll need their help."

"It's not Ridcully, is it?" Prussia burst out laughing. "That would be amazing."

"Ridcully's getting old," England pointed out sadly, instead of answering the question. "He's still doing a good job as Archchancellor, but he's near ninety now, and ten years from now he may start to lose it. I'm not sure how well we'll find him, or the other wizards."

Den laughed and stretched. "Maybe all that jogging keeps him fit."

"Maybe you should box with him, bastard. I read that he went two rounds with Detritus once."

"I'm not a boxer, my friend. Even if I was, I don't know the Marquis of Fantailler rules."

"Pfft. Not that different from Queensberry," England replied, "though I don't think we want to sit around and watch Den pummel the Archchancellor."

"Kesesese! I'd do it!"

"No, you won't," his friends chorused.

"Why not?"

"Because we're not here to beat people up! Wanker. Come on, let's get in there." The island nation gestured them through the main gate.

"Hello, Mr. Arthur," Modo called from the rose garden. England raised a hand and waved, but they continued towards the intricate front doors.

Before they reached the top step, Ridcully himself came out to greet them. "Gentlemen! A little birdie told me you'd be here today!" He took England's hand and shook it fiercely; the blond grinned and pumped back.

As he performed the introductions, he noticed that Ridcully and Denmark were trying to outdo each other with powerful handshakes. Hah. He just hoped the Archchancellor wouldn't try that with Romano. His friend's hand would be crushed!

But Ridcully seemed to understand that, and shook Romano's hand politely (pretending not to notice Den rubbing his knuckles in the background), and then laughed as Prussia gave him the Awesome Grin and tried to crush his hand. "Nice to meet you all."

When Prussia finally let go, England snorted quietly to see Ridcully rubbing his hand behind his back. "Fine day, Archchancellor. University doing well?"

Ridcully gestured them into the building. "Come in, do. Yes, everything's fine. Had a bit of a problem with the Bursar last week, but it's all been straightened out." He cleared his throat. "Turns out the fella's been faking this insanity all these years, just to get his hands on the dried frog. Turned into quite an addiction. Librarian's been good with the poor chap, though. Should have him back on his feet and at his post in another year or so."

He led them into a large room ringed with buffet tables. These tables were laden with food, and the chairs in the room laden with sleeping wizards. "University's finest," the Archchancellor said with a scowl. Several pairs of eyes opened up, looked at the head of the University, and closed again.

"Kesesese! Will you introduce us? I want to meet them all."

"When they wake up. Why don't you blokes get yourself something to eat, and we can sit over here and talk?"

The nations, a little worried, headed to one of the tables. "Is this going to be weird food shit?" Romano wondered.

"No. It's mostly like English food." The island nation had eagerly begun piling things up on a plate, and hadn't noticed his three friends looking at each other in dismay. "What? What?" he asked, when none of them had made a move to fill a plate. "Gits. Just get something to eat, if you're hungry, and don't, if you're not. Romano, there's coffee over there."

The brunet nodded at him and went to the coffee urn; Prussia and Denmark shrugged and picked up plates.

When they'd all sat down, with only Ridcully having joined them, the Archchancellor beamed and began eating pie. "Well, my friends? What is it that we can help you with today?"

With a nervous look at his friends, England leaned closer to the big man. He didn't know whether they'd read about this, and didn't know whether they might freak out. But they _did _want to meet the personification of the whole Disc – "We'd like you to perform the Rite of AshkEnte."

…

_I know a lot of people think Vimes should be the personification of A-M (like, dA artists and fanfic writers), but I never really thought he'd do. He's too straightforward. But Nobby seems right, to me, somehow._

_Stay tuned. I think Moist will show up in the next chapter._


	10. Ankh-Morpork II

**Ankh-Morpork II.**

_"What?"_ Romano screeched and leaped out of his chair so fast that it fell over. Den and Prussia each grabbed an arm and held onto him as he struggled to get away. "Death?"

England and Ridcully ignored this, continuing to talk in low tones, although the sleeping wizards, as one man, had awakened and made a rush for the door. The noise level escalated as they bottlenecked, trying to shove each other's bulk out of the way.

"Stop it, you chaps," Ridcully said quietly, and with a wave of his hand the door glowed red. All the wizards backed off and sat sheepishly back down, eyes on the Archchancellor.

"You can't be serious," Romano said to England. "You _can't_. Death? You're insane."

Denmark leaned over and righted Romano's chair. "I don't mind," he grinned.

Prussia nodded agreement. "If that's who it is, that's who it is."

"Well, everyone's awake, might as well get it done now. Push these tables back. Runes, go get some mouse blood." Ridcully rose from his chair.

England stood up too. "It's not what you think," he told Romano reassuringly. "Help move the tables."

"I must protest, Archchancellor!" The Lecturer in Recent Runes fluttered his hands as he defied the powerful Ridcully. "Are we merely showmen? Performing monkeys?"

Several wizards looked around warily at that, but apparently the Librarian was not within earshot. "I have to agree," Stibbons added. "The University is not a sideshow."

"Whose door says 'Archchancellor'? I believe it's mine. Now, all this waffling isn't getting the job done. Go get the blood, Runes."

"I actually have some right here." The Senior Wrangler fished in one of the pockets of his robe.

"What on earth for?" Dr. Hix took the vial from his hands. "Even in Post-Mortem Communications we don't need to carry mouse blood around."

"It's – I just – just –"

"Never mind. Give me that." Ridcully snatched it from Hix and turned back to the guests. All the tables had by now been pushed back, and there was a large cleared space in the center of the floor. "Right, gents. Let's all stand around the edges here."

Reluctantly the wizards shuffled into position. Den, Prussia and England stepped lively, and the island nation had to drag the scowling Romano, but eventually everyone was ready. "Wait," Prussia said. "Which way is north?"

"There is no real north," England told him. "Because it's a _disc._"

"Oh. Oh, yeah. Okay, well, just pretend Den is magnetic north, and stand in our compass positions."

His friends rolled their eyes, but did as asked, while the wizards stared in amazement. "Is this a sort of magic ritual of your land?" Rincewind asked politely, one eye on the door.

"Kesesese! You could say that. It keeps us oriented." Prussia winked at Romano, and the Archchancellor began the spell.

Seconds later the inside of the makeshift circle glowed, and a figure materialized. All the nations closed their eyes against the brightness.

"What exactly is the meaning of this?" they heard, in tones that sounded decidedly un-Death-like. Denmark opened his eyes and saw – _aha._ No wonder England had said 'It's not what you think.' Susan Sto Helit stood in the center, extremely angry, and shaking a finger at Ridcully. "If this is your idea of a joke –"

"It's not," England said to her, and she turned to where he stood. "Please forgive us. Just a little showing off for my friends."

Susan lowered her threatening index finger and tried to calm down. "Nice to see you again, Arthur."

"Likewise. You look as striking as you did last time I saw you." England began to perform the introductions, starting with Romano, so Den had some time to spare observing her. She looked just as he would have imagined from the books, where she'd been very thoroughly described – although her current outfit of brown overalls and an oversized checked red and black shirt didn't seem to go with the image. Perhaps she'd been gardening. Her famous hair was back in a tight bun, although it had begun to slip from its pins.

When England finally got around to introducing him, Denmark smiled brightly, almost flirtatiously. She was a very beautiful girl, even with the slight irritation still on her face. "This is Mathias Kohler, the personification of a country known as Denmark."

He held out a hand to her. Mesmerized, she reached out for it, but her fingers struck the inside of the invisible circle and caused a blue electric spark to flash. "Oh. Do forgive me," Ridcully boomed, waving a hand and causing the wall to disappear. Susan nodded at him – one professional to another – and blushed as she reached out to take Denmark's hand.

He'd intended to shake her hand, but instead simply held hers; they gazed at each other (he in delight, she in nervousness) until a "Kesesese!" broke the awkward silence. "Come on! Let's sit and talk!" Prussia ran to a table and began dragging it into its proper place.

Susan seemed to become aware of her current state of dress and let go of Den's hand. "Ah – excuse me, just a moment, gentlemen."

He watched her turn her back, close her eyes; the outfit melted, shifted, to become a lacy black dress; her hair slipped free of all its pins and stood out from her head. It only added to the charm, he thought, as she turned around again, smiling nervously at him. "Beautiful," he murmured, ignoring Romano's snort.

Soon everyone was seated at the long table, including the wizards. "I repeat that it's nice to see you, Arthur, but why have you pulled me here? I was in the middle of cleaning out some attics."

"We wanted to meet the personification of the Disc!" Prussia wiggled in his seat and Den laughed at him a little. "It's so awesome that it's you."

"And not your grandfather," Romano added in a low chuckle. The wizards all nodded feverish agreement.

"Grandfather isn't human enough to represent the entire Disc." Susan reached for a cup of coffee.

Denmark noticed that she seemed, well, not uncomfortable, but distracted, whenever she looked at him, or talked to him. He stayed mostly quiet, smiling at her, or at his friends, as the conversation flowed, and each time their eyes met, she blushed. Once, he winked at her while she was speaking, and she got completely flustered and lost the thread of her sentence.

After that – when many of the wizards had dropped off to sleep again – she rose. "I do need to get back," she told them, "although it was a nice surprise to meet you all." She blushed again as she gazed up at Den, who had also stood up.

"The Archchancellor told me you live in Ankh-Morpork now," England responded. "Maybe we could escort you home? We did want to see some more of the city."

"Thank you, Arthur. Yes, please."

The group bid their farewells to Ridcully and his faculty and left the University. "Dammit. It really feels like I'm escaping from an actual university! Something about these places always makes me feel little and stupid again."

"You're fine." England patted Romano on the back. "Where do we need to go?" he asked Susan.

"Near the Patrician's Palace," she answered, so they set off in that direction.

"This is _so awesome!_"

"Yeah, you moron. Can't you control it?"

"Aw, Romano, you're always trying to kill my high. Let me be happy! There's not that much for me to be happy about at home, you know."

Before Romano could answer, Susan stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. "Oh, no. Not him again."

Den peered around to see who she meant, but she'd already begun to run down a side street. "Hey!" he yelled.

"I'll be fine! Have a nice visit, Mathias!" she called out, waving merrily as she ran; her clothing slowly changed back to the frumpy outfit she'd had on earlier. "And the rest of you," Susan added as an afterthought, disappearing around a corner.

"That was random," Prussia frowned. "Who the hell was she running from?"

"Cheh, maybe she was tired of your excessive bullshit." Romano laughed and poked him.

"She certainly hadn't tired of Den." England gave him a snarky grin. "Really pouring it on today, weren't you?"

_"Moist!"_ Prussia yelled this before Denmark had to answer. He was a little relieved.

"Where?" All the others turned to see, and yes…the Man in the Golden Suit strode towards them, a hand outstretched, a small crowd following him. "Wonder what he's up to? Why's everybody following him?"

"Arthur! My good friend, hello." Moist shook the beaming England's hand. All the people around the bank director stopped walking and stared at the nations.

"What's the word, Postmaster?" England then introduced his friends, all of whom shook Moist's hand.

"You are awesome," Prussia told him. "If I could be anybody in Ankh-Morpork it'd be you."

Moist laughed loud and long. "That's quite a compliment, I'd say. Come along to the bank! We're celebrating the city's sesquibicenterarianal this year, and the dining room of the bank has quite a spread on."

They joined him for the walk back to the bank, the crowds having dispersed since apparently no street theatre would be taking place. "Thanks, but we ate at the University," England pointed out.

"Oh, that's all right. You can manage something, I'm sure."

"I'm sure we can! Free food is always welcome." Prussia danced along the road near them, grinning and waving at all the people he could see. "It's like a fair!"

"H-how did you know where we were?" Romano asked Moist. "I mean, it seems like you came out to meet us specifically."

"Well, the Times had a special edition out. Mostly it was about this robbery in Treacle Mine Road, but some of it was about you. I have little interest in the robberies committed around here –"

"Probably not artistic enough for you, kesesese –"

"– so I came to greet you."

By now they'd reached the street in front of the Royal Bank. Denmark gave it a good once-over; it did look a lot like the banks at home. Like a temple, indeed. Vendors outside hawked their wares from trays like Dibbler's, or little tables set up around the area. "What are they selling?"

"Pfft." Moist waved a dismissive hand. "Rubbish, for the most part. Knickknacks to celebrate. Everyone seems to think that a wooden button carved with the city's founding year on it will become some kind of priceless family heirloom in a few generations."

"Yeah, we know how that can be." Prussia nodded.

As they followed the Postmaster into the bank, Denmark turned for one last glimpse of the street, and saw Susan peeking from behind the corner building. She waved frantically; he blew her a kiss, and ducked after his friends with a grin.

…

Unfortunately the friends didn't have a chance to meet any other famous people. Romano had begun to act a little crabby, and Den suspected it was because he didn't dare eat any of the Discworld food. He laughed a little. "Hey, England, maybe we should get going," he murmured, gesturing to the scowling Italian with his chin.

"Yes, you're probably right." He rose and made their excuses to Moist, who had been receiving clipboards full of paperwork all afternoon. The other nations stood up too, Romano with relief on his face.

"Thank you again. It was awesome to meet you." Prussia shook the man's hand with an excess of enthusiasm.

"You're more than welcome. Take care on the trip home."

"Are we leaving from here, bastard?"

"No. Let's go out into the street. Give the people a little show, yeah?" England took Romano by the hand and led the way out, while Moist settled back in with more tea and paperwork, waving farewell.

The street seemed more crowded than before, and Den got separated from his friends as they tried to find a space big enough for all of them to stand in their circle. Eventually all four of them were together and standing appropriately. England lit the candle and set it on the cobblestones. Passersby stood back, wondering what would happen, and the travelers blipped back home.

…

Den and Romano both felt a little shaky when they arrived back in the Sanctum. "Where the hell's the albino potato?"

"That _bloody wanker!_ Listen. I have to go get him. You two, stay here."

"Do we have to stay in the circle?" Den wondered.

"No. Just don't leave the room; get some water from the sink in the corner. Two glasses. That _git!" _England lit the candle and vanished again.

"What could have happened to him?"

"Beats me, bastard. He was standing right there with us." Romano rubbed his shoulder. "Dammit. This never hurt before, but today it does."

"Well, if you were holding onto Prussia and he didn't come back, that would yank your arm a bit." Denmark headed to the sink for the two glasses of water.

By the time he came back England and Prussia had reappeared in the circle, Prussia with a bloody nose, and England apparently in mid-tirade. "You idiot!"

"Arthur, I'm sorry! I had no idea!" The albino saw Den holding the water and grabbed one, gulping it all down; England did likewise, and then threw a towel to his friend to mop up the blood.

Romano peered at him. "What the fuck did you do?"

"The git tried to bring something back with him. Didn't I tell you? When they had Den's axe in Oz? We can't leave anything there, and we can't take anything away!" England shoved Prussia right out of the circle. "Wanker."

"Ow, listen, I said I was sorry, all right?"

"Let me guess," Den laughed. "Ankh-Morpork souvenir spoon?"

"Kesesese! You got it, my flirtatious friend."

"B-but what the fuck happened? Why didn't you come back, and the spoon stay there?"

"Because he was holding it in his hand. If it had been in a pocket, or the rucksack or whatever, it could have stayed. Oh, bugger. It's just a law of magic, all right?" The angry island nation shooed them all upstairs. "Wash up, Gilbert, and go home. I've got a massive headache from all this."

"Want me to go too, bastard?"

England flicked his eyes to each of them in turn. "Please. I'm going to be miserable company for the next day or so. I'll give you a call."

By now everyone was in the foyer. "All right, idiot. Rest up and try to forget all this." Romano gave him a brief hug.

"Yeah, and thanks, though," Den added. "It was cool to see the place, meet some of the people."

"Kesesese! Glad we didn't have to meet Vetinari!"

"Pfft. Me too, stupid. Didn't want to see the scorpion pit up close." Romano grabbed the annoying albino and dragged him out the door; Den followed with a wave.

…

England forced himself to stay up quite late that night. He'd spent the afternoon looking things up in various books of magic, and collecting random ingredients. He was completely fed up with these wankers and how they kept turning the adventures into disasters! A certain spell he'd found would erase it from their minds, leaving only hazy memories like a dream or a fantasy.

Briefly he worried about Bulgaria and Estonia, but he'd just send them emails warning them not to mention it. Didn't want to take away their good memories of the Hogwarts day.

Around two in the morning, when it was reasonably certain that all three of his friends would be asleep, he headed back down to the Sanctum, lit three red candles, sprinkled some dry oil into the circle, repeated a chant three times – in Italian, German and Danish – and followed by consuming some orange zest ground with a little eye of newt. "That ought to do it," he muttered to himself, cleaning up and heading for bed.

…

In the morning, Romano woke up feeling less disgruntled than usual, and when he was done with his morning routine, decided to reread all the Harry Potter books from start to finish. He curled up with some tomato juice and began to read.

…

In the morning, it was cold out, so Den decided to make a fire. He used applewood, and built it up so that it roared in the grate, and he snuggled up gratefully in front of it with a copy of "The Wizard of Oz," with his axe by his side.

…

In the morning, Prussia screamed at the sight of his souvenir spoons and ran right out of the house.

…

And England had a very peaceful day.

…

_Well, this is the last hurrah. I think this was not as great an idea in execution as it was in theory. For one thing, it's really – _really_ – hard to get in character for all the fictional world people as well as the boys. Also, it's unlikely that many readers are going to (a) be familiar with or (b) care about these worlds that I want to write about. Lastly, it's a lot of research! Other than the Discworld one (which I admit is kind of sloppy, with no real action happening), I had to reread and look up a lot of points. So, this is the end of this one. I might even take it down one of these days. _

_I will continue with "Rowan" and "First Contact." Thank you all for reading._


End file.
